FTC Plans Motion to Dismiss ‘Joe Camel’ Suit

Attorneys for the Federal Trade Commission said Monday they would seek to dismiss the government’s case against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco over its Joe Camel advertising campaign, after tobacco companies reached a landmark $206-billion settlement with 46 states.

“The state settlement provides for all of the relief that we are seeking in this case and satisfies all of the objectives that we had in bringing this case,” FTC attorney Joel Winston said as the government’s case before an administrative law judge entered its third week.

Winston said officials would file a motion to dismiss the case against R.J. Reynolds, a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., within the next 24 hours. Federal Trade Commission members would then have to vote on the motion, a spokeswoman said.

The FTC’s latest action came as the nation’s biggest tobacco companies finalized the huge settlement with the states that includes restrictions on advertising, including a prohibition on cartoon characters.

Administrative hearings at the FTC began earlier this month against R.J. Reynolds in a case designed to ban Joe Camel, the cartoon dromedary accused by anti-smoking activists of luring children into smoking, from appearing in tobacco advertising.

The tobacco company voluntarily pulled the ads a year ago--about the same time the agency filed its suit.

The government’s latest action came as good news to R.J. Reynolds, which has argued for years that there is no proof the advertisements caused a rise in youth smoking.

“Obviously we are delighted that the FTC’s misguided and wasteful case against our company apparently has been brought to an end by the staff’s motion to dismiss,” said Guy Blynn, deputy general counsel and a vice president at R.J. Reynolds.