Legal Wrangling by Big Tobacco

Posted: April 24, 2014 | tobacco | legal, lie, smoking, tobacco | 0 Comments

It has long been suspected that big tobacco has known about the health risks associated with smoking for decades. Many believe that tobacco companies choose to ignore, or in some cases even lie about or cover up, the truth. The truth in this case, is that smoking can cause cancer and other serious health problems.

The problem is, through endless legal wrangling tobacco companies have been able to protect their claim of ignorance due to a lack of evidence and witnesses. Many tobacco companies have long held the stance that they don’t ‘believe’ their products are addictive or harmful, despite an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to the contrary.

Imagine the collective surprise of tobacco executives around the globe when one of their own recently came clean.

Roger Ackman, who ran the legal department for Imperial Tobacco Ltd. (a Canadian tobacco company) in the 1980’s and 1990’s recently admitted to Canadian courts that he actively took part in destroying scientific documents that directly linked smoking to adverse health effects. The revelation came during a hearing as part of a $27-billion dollar class action suit filed by Quebec smokers and tobacco addicts who suffer from tobacco-related diseases.

According to Ackman, who retired in 1999, he hired outside counsel to destroy at least 60 documents that not only proved the negative effects of smoking but also served to prove that the three companies being sued knew about the risks and chose to destroy the evidence.

A 2006 U.S. ruling concluded that tobacco execs in the U.S., Canada and Australia all took part in hiding or destroying evidence but Roger Ackman’s admission marks the first time that an executive (albeit a retired exec) actually copped to taking part in destroying evidence.

Needless to say, this could very well be a damning turn in the case for Canadian tobacco companies but never count out the clever folks in big tobacco legal departments. Although Canadian, American and Australian documents have been destroyed, Ackman alleges that copies of the same documents still exist in the United Kingdom but, of course, jurisdictional legal hardships won’t make getting these documents into a Canadian court easy by any means.