Justice: bitter defeat for cigarette manufacturers in Switzerland

In Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Court has issued its verdict: the Swiss Customs Administration must provide Oxysuisse, an anti-smoking association, with information on the retail sale prices of cigarette brands for the years 2014 and 2015. This decision ends a three-year legal battle, for which the tobacco industry has mounted a fierce defense. As Oxysuisse mentions in its press release, the association, which suspects the three major tobacco companies of a secret price agreement, wants to investigate the matter. Switzerland, one of the few countries in the world not to have ratified the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), is a real Eldorado for the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry is making record profits in Switzerland: in no other European country do cigarette manufacturers make such a large profit margin per pack of cigarettes. If we take the best-selling brand, for example, the gross profit margin is 3.40 Swiss francs per pack, or just over 3.20 euros. In comparison, in France, the latter is 0.69 euros, or a ratio of one to five. The reason is that the Swiss tax policy on cigarette packs is particularly low and has been blocked since 2013. While in all neighboring countries, tobacco taxes far exceed the rate recommended by the WHO, i.e. 70%, the National Council and the Council of States refuse to take corresponding measures to prevent the price of tobacco from becoming "a deterrent to consumption". This policy, which is disastrous from a health perspective (smoking causes the death of nearly 10,000 people per year in Switzerland), is also a financial drain: the absence of a proactive tax policy results in a loss of 200 million Swiss francs (190 million euros). If the suspicion of price fixing between tobacco companies were proven, OxySuisse would advocate the implementation of the following measures:

• Apply the law on cartels to obtain their dismantling, and request the reimbursement of sums collected illegally.
• Alert the price monitoring office for a thorough examination of the concerted pricing practices of tobacco multinationals.

©Tobacco Free Generation

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©National Committee Against Smoking |