Cigarette Warnings US Tobacco Companies

A US court on Friday shot down orders to slap graphic anti-tobacco messages on cigarette packs, saying the government overstepped its authority by trying to "browbeat" smokers into quitting, AFP reports. In line with campaigns in several other nations, the United States planned from September 22 to require images on cigarette packs including a man smoking through a hole in his throat and a body with chest staples on an autopsy table.

Imperial Tobacco Must Drop Cigarettes Price

Britain’s antitrust regulator must scrap its price-fixing trial over U.K. cigarette sales after being forced to abandon several claims in the seven-year-old case, Imperial Tobacco Plc told a tribunal today. Mark Howard, a lawyer for the company, told the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London that the Office of Fair Trading’s case had been “destroyed.” The court had asked the regulator to explain how it will continue fighting appeals of fines against Imperial Tobacco, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and 10 other manufacturers and retailers. “One can’t conduct litigation on this basis,” Imperial’s lawyer, Howard said. “To say this is hopeless is really an understatement.”