Court rejects case against Australian cigarette logos ban

Philip Morris Asia Limited launched its challenge against the Australian government in 2011, seeking to rely on an argument that the ban on trademarks breached foreign investment provisions of Australia’s 1993 Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with Hong Kong.

Philip Morris challenged Australia’s plain-packaging laws when they came into force in 2011.

“Plain packaging is a legitimate public health measure which is consistent with Australia’s worldwide legal obligations”, Ms. Nash said. The breakthrough judgment passed by the Singapore court would also encourage other countries to follow Australia’s footsteps to stricter laws for tobacco companies.

An Australian law requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging receives a boost after an worldwide tribunal says it will not hear a tobacco company’s legal challenge.

Action on Smoking and Health NZ (ASH) congratulate the Australian Government on their stand to back themselves and their decision on implementing Plain Pack Cigarettes, and now (as expected) have won their case against the tobacco industry.

Under the law, the companies must ban all forms of branding on the packets, including logos and colors.

“It is regrettable that the outcome hinged entirely on a procedural issue that Australia chose to advocate instead of confronting head on the merits of whether plain packaging is legal or even works”, Mr Marc Firestone, Philip Morris International senior vice-president, said in a statement.

The court said on its website that it would make its decision public once any potentially confidential material within it had been redacted.

“The Coalition Government has powered ahead with plain packaging and invested in reducing smoking rates across the board”, she said.

Professor Mike Daube, who chaired the government expert committee that recommended the laws, said the federal government, and former Labor health minister Nicola Roxon, who led the charge for plain packaging, should feel vindicated.

“Smoking in Australia is falling in adults, in children and by tobacco volume sales”, said Australia’s Public Health Association chief executive, Michael Moore.

In 2012, Australia became the first country to mandate plain packaging for cigarettes, in a bid to reduce smoking rates, and has since been followed by other nations, including France and Britain.

Since Australia passed its laws several other countries have introduced similar legislation, and another 20 are considering the idea. In 2012, a challenge by British American Tobacco against Australia’s laws failed in the country’s peak High Court.