| Presidential Administration in Concerns for the Health of Smokers Presidential Administration Manager Vladimir Kozhin finally admitted: the talk about the lawsuit “Russia against transnational tobacco corporations” is not empty. “There is such a thing,” he said . According to the official, on behalf of the government, the presidential affairs department is working with one of the law firms in the United States: “Claims are being prepared, the amount is quite impressive.” The details are foggy. Mr. Kozhin did not specify either the size of the claims or the names of the defendant companies. Meanwhile, at the end of summer it became known that such a lawsuit, filed by Mr. Kozhin on behalf of Russia, had already been accepted for proceedings by one of the courts of the state of Florida for about two months. Representatives of leading US tobacco companies speak about this as a fait accompli (unlike Mr. Kozhin).
“We are not sure that all this was done with the full, including legal, support of the Russian government,” Paul Adams, regional director for Europe at British American Tobacco (BAT), told the Vremya Novostei newspaper. -- The lawsuit states that international tobacco corporations have harmed the health of Russians for decades. But we have been in this market for less than ten years! And in 1994, BAT signed agreements with the Russian government, which clearly stipulated that we could not be persecuted for what happened before our arrival. I would also like to say that we are in contact with high-ranking officials in the Russian government. This contact allows us to understand how much they support the lawsuit initiative.”
Oil on Sakhalin, PSA projects - all this is great. However, it is the tobacco industry in Russia that has received the most foreign direct investment over the years of independence. Making claims against foreigners is an excellent demonstration of the current government’s real ability to deal with Western investors.
A much more correct addressee for such a claim would be, for example, ex-USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev or Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin. After all, until the 90s, there was a state tobacco monopoly in the country. So it would be more logical today from the USSR state as a monopolist (and from its leaders) to demand “reimbursement of expenses for the treatment of citizens for diseases associated with smoking” “Prima”, “Belomor”, etc. Sergey MURAVYEV |
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