JTI sentenced for illegal sales at Singapore music festival

In February 2020, Japan Tobacco International Singapore (JTI) pleaded guilty to three offences under the Tobacco Act 1993 of Singapore. The latter deals in particular with the control of tobacco sales and advertising. JTI is notably found guilty of supplying cigarettes at the Ultra music festival in Singapore in 2016. Prior to the Ultra music festival, Mark Lim, a producer at Pico Art International (the agency in charge of promoting the event), contacted JTI’s director of commercial marketing to discuss a possible sponsorship. A tripartite agreement was negotiated whereby Ultra would initially receive 20,000 Singapore $ as part of its sponsorship agreement. This was supplemented by additional funding linked to a profit sharing on JTI’s sales at the event. The communications company Pico Art for its part helped JTI recruit part-time workers to man booths at the event. These were plastered with posters advertising the manufacturer’s cigarette brands Winston, Camel, Mevius and LD. Festival-goers were prohibited from carrying cigarette packets (Tobacco Act 1993 - Control of Advertisement and Sale). To circumvent this ban at the festival, smokers would have to buy cigarettes from JTI. The following scheme was devised: While festival-goers placed orders for cigarettes, workers hired for the festival would pass the orders on to their colleagues stationed at the 7-Eleven store near the festival. The part-time workers would then leave the festival grounds to collect and distribute the orders to the respective buyers. During the two-day festival, approximately 1,300 to 1,600 packets of cigarettes were sold. The company was fined S$15,000 (about €9,600) on five separate counts of violating the law. ©Generation Without Tobacco

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Source of the article (in English) | ©National Committee Against Smoking |