British American Tobacco & others v. Department of Health

United Kingdom

19.05.2016

Commercial

High Court snuffs tremendous tobacco challenge

Tobacco companies launched full scale war against British legislation enabling Article 20(5) of the Tobacco Products Directive, which severely restricts the ability of tobacco companies to advertise their brands on packaging and on the products themselves.

The measures, recently approved, by the British Parliament bring in “standardised packaging” - homogenised, undifferentiated sale of tobacco products. Companies can mention their name and brand of product, but much of the allure of advertising is erased, replaced by health warnings and helplines to quit smoking.

Tobacco arguments against the regulations are severalfold and encompass quite literally the entire proceedings. Beginning with the legality of source of the regulation, issue is raised about treatment of evidence produced by tobacco companies, the proportionality of regulation, competing private and public interest and more - totalling 17 grounds of challenge.

The Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court in London rejected all of the claims for judicial review. The court was of the opinion that the regulations were not disproportionate and achieved a significant public health objective. The tobacco industry was not denied monetisation of its intellectual property; moreover, “private predominantly financial interest of the tobacco industry…balance comes down overwhelmingly in favour of the Regulations”.

Also relied on was a European Court of Justice ruling rejecting a tobacco challenge regarding implantation of EU legislation. The court in that case too had rejected the super-technical challenges and found the Regulation “perfectly valid” under international and European law. Taking a pragmatic approach, the court also noted that the tobacco industry making its profits was resulting in a “health crises of epidemic proportions”, as described by the World Health Organisation, and the clean-up cost would fall on the public itself.

Standard packaging

Tags : tobacco uniform packaging branding

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