TOBACCO SETTLEMENT CNMI gets additional $300K

The Northern Marianas is set to receive this week close to $300,000 from giant tobacco manufacturers, representing its share this year of the payment under the settlement agreement reached with the U.S. government in 1998.

The money, estimated at $291,531.34, was wired into the CNMI general fund last Monday (mainland time), according to a statement issued by acting Attorney General Herb D. Soll.

This will add to the more than $300,000 that has been given already to the Commonwealth as part of its $30 million share from the settlement. It will be paid in installment for the next 25 years.

Last December, the island government was awarded $137,531.25 in attorney’s fees and costs incurred from that litigation, in addition to its share.

These payments were all part of the $206-billion master tobacco settlement agreement with cigarette manufacturers in exchange for dropping of the lawsuits over health costs on treating sick smokers.

In the statement released yesterday, Mr. Soll said the award of attorney’s fees and costs was meant to compensate the Commonwealth for its part in the class action suit initiated by state governments across the nation.

“AGO attorneys worked long and hard to achieve this unprecedented award against the tobacco companies, many times participating in conference calls and planning strategy with other states and territories in the middle of the night, due to time differences,” the statement said.

Under the deal, the CNMI will receive payment annually beginning last year until 2024 ranging from half-a-million dollars to $700,000 from tobacco companies.

In order to get its share in the multi-billion tobacco case, the CNMI filed a lawsuit against four of the biggest tobacco companies on December 23, 1998, namely Philip Morris Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. and Lorillard Tobacco Co.

Since the companies failed to file an appeal on January 23, 1999, Superior Court Presiding Judge Edward Manibusan declared the decision in favor of the CNMI final.
Some 46 states and four territories sued the tobacco manufacturers in 1998 and 1999 to collect damages for health expenditures incurred in treating smoking-related illnesses.

Through the National Association of Attorneys General, a settlement agreement was reached and signed by all of the parties. It calls for the tobacco manufacturers to pay steadily increasing amounts to the states and territories as long as the companies manufacture and sell cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The settlement also requires the industry to set up a charitable foundation aimed at reducing smoking among teens as well as to finance a $1.45 billion national public education for tobacco control.