Three tobacco companies have been ordered to pay $15 billion in damages after losing a historic court case in Quebec. A judge in the Canadian province of Quebec ruled in favour of two groups representing Quebec smokers, ordering Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans Benson & Hedges and JTI-MacDonald to pay for punitive and moral damages. The victims had been waiting for about 17 years for this decision. The legal proceedings began in 2012, 13 years after two class-action lawsuits were initiated by groups comprising about one million people. The lawsuits, which sought $27 billion in damages, were heard together in what was touted as the biggest civil case in Canadian history.
In the USA, a similar lawsuit resulted in three major U.S. tobacco companies (R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard, and Altria's Philip Morris USA) being ordered to pay $100 million to settle hundreds of federal lawsuits over smoking.
The agreement will cover more than 400 lawsuits filed in federal court in Florida by smokers or their families.
| Drugs: | Tobacco |
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| Regions: | Canada, USA (United States of America) |