Business Law

“Australian court approves tobacco pack logo ban”

(Article Review)

by

Sirri Aybars Azizoglu

for

Phil Howard

BL 260

Source:

Australian court approves tobacco pack logo ban, James Grubel, August 15, 2012

Main Points:

Tobacco companies are always sued because tobacco causes cancer. However, this time, a tobacco company is suing the Australian government over the government’s aggressive plan about cigarette packs. “Under the plan, logos, trademarks, colors, and graphics would be removed from all cigarette packages. Packages would also be a drab olive green color, specifically chosen since research has shown it to be the least appealing to consumers. The law also comes with a 25% tobacco tax increase” (Smith, 2011).

The Australian Government passed a new plan this November 10 world’s first plain packaging law. Restricting the packaging is nothing new because we witnessed this before in 2009 when Nations decided to restrict the packaging by placing warning labels comprising 50% or front and back of the pack. But Australian new plan is to wiping company’s entire logo. According to British American Tobacco, Britain’s Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco, this regulation is unconstitutional because they effectively extinguished their intellectual property rights.

The tobacco companies claim that these restrictions are violating international trademarks and intellectual property laws, therefore, companies were seeking for billion in compensation. The companies also say that plain packaging laws will encourage a black market in fake or illegally imported cigarettes.

However, tobacco companies lost the case against the Australian Tobacco Packaging Law. This court gives a message that big tobacco can be taken on and beaten. Since the court focuses on to the message so badly, they did not realize that they violate the tobacco companies’ rights. This is completely against business law and ethics.

Conclusions:

The restriction by...