Court decisions in support of the fight against smoking

Several rulings by the Paris Court of Appeal have been issued in recent weeks regarding proceedings initiated by the National Committee Against Smoking. They all reinforce judgments of conviction against manufacturers and distributors of tobacco products.

Two decisions dated 20 December 2019 concerned cigarette packets. In one case, they concerned the insertion of stickers in packets of the “Fortuna” brand (Imperial - SEITA) and in the second case, limited edition collector packets for the “Che” brand (Landewyck). The Court of Appeal upheld the defendants' conviction for using the packaging as an advertising medium. The judges even extended the notion of advertising to the affixing of certain ecological pictograms.

These procedures were initiated before the generalization of neutral packaging in France on 1^er January 2017. They emphasize that despite a decision of principle by the Court of Cassation (Crim., May 3, 2006, “Winfield” ruling) prohibiting the use of packets as a means of communicating with consumers, tobacco manufacturers continued to offer such attractive packaging until the introduction of plain packaging.

A more recent decision, rendered on 22 January 2020 by the same Court, also upheld the conviction of cigar manufacturer Dannemann and distributor Logista. The trial judges convicted packs of cigars of the “Moods” brand with numerous promotional statements. This is in fact the third procedure brought against the manufacturer, for the same offences, having already been judged by the courts. Thus, despite these previous convictions, the manufacturer continued to place irregular packs on the market, as plain packs had not been imposed on cigars until now.