EC to Pursue Cigarette-Smuggling Charges Against R.J. Reynolds
The European Commission said Thursday it would press ahead with a U.S. lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. on money-laundering charges after a U.S. court threw out a separate cigarette-smuggling claim.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York on Wednesday upheld a lower-court decision to dismiss the European smuggling suit against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris Cos.
The European Union’s central regulator is moving ahead with a suit against R.J. Reynolds alleging that it failed to prevent crime syndicates in Russia, Italy and Colombia from using cigarette purchases to launder proceeds from narcotics and weapons trafficking, a spokeswoman said.
“We are still considering whether to file money-laundering cases against other companies,” the spokeswoman said.
R.J. Reynolds called the accusations “absurd” when the commission filed the money-laundering suit in a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn in October 2002.
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