Tobacco Litigation

Experience

Our attorneys have vast experience with disputes concerning the regulation of tobacco and tobacco products under various federal and state laws and regulations, including the Cigarette Contraband and Trafficking Act (CCTA), Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), FDA regulations, the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004, and the Jenkins Act, as well as escrow statutes, complementary legislation, and the vast regulatory apparatus that has sprung up on the state level under the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

Our efforts in this regard are on behalf of Non-Participating Manufacturers, principally Native American concerns, and have included the following.

• Served as counsel on a case against 36 state attorneys general attacking the MSA itself on antitrust and Commerce Clause grounds that has three times been to the Second Circuit.
• Served as counsel regarding a claim concerning the MSA that was arbitrated against the State Department under the North American Free Trade Agreement; a federal criminal trial in Seattle, Washington under the CCTA.
• Served as counsel in lawsuits in four states arising out of efforts to impose escrow requirements on cigarettes sold on reservation.
• Served as counsel in disputes involving more than a dozen other states pertaining to either escrow obligations or other matters of state regulation.

And on behalf of individual Native Americans, their Tribal Councils, and their privately owned businesses, we provide aggressive defense of and affirmative responses to state and local law enforcement investigations and initiatives prompted by anonymous anti-competitive complaints, and have successfully defended federal fraud and civil RICO litigation brought by private business interests to stem our clients' effective competition in the marketplace, as well as state criminal accusations charging obstruction of justice.