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 selling prices of cigarette brands for 2014 and 2015. This decision ends a three-year legal battle, which the tobacco industry fiercely defended.<\/p>\n
As Oxysuisse mentions in its press release, the association, which suspects the three major tobacco companies of secret price fixing, wishes to investigate the matter.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> for the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n The tobacco industry is making record profits in Switzerland: in no other European country do cigarette manufacturers generate such a high profit margin per pack of cigarettes. Taking the best-selling brand, for example, the gross profit margin is 3.40 Swiss francs per pack, or just over 3.20 euros. By comparison, in France, the margin is 0.69 euros, a ratio of one to five.<\/p>\n The reason is that Switzerland's tax policy on cigarette packets is particularly weak and has been blocked since 2013. While tobacco taxes in all neighboring countries far exceed the WHO recommended rate of 70%, the National Council and the Council of States refuse to take corresponding measures to prevent the price of tobacco from becoming a "disincentive to consumption."<\/p>\n This policy, 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 revenue of 200 million Swiss francs (190 million euros).<\/p>\n If the suspicion of price collusion between tobacco companies is proven, OxySuisse advocates the implementation of the following measures:<\/p>\n\n