OKLAHOMA CITY -- One of the original eight state attorneys-general to settle with "Big Tobacco" in 1998 is still tracking down transgressors wherever they are.
Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson
announced Friday that he had filed suit against cigarette-makers in Paraguay, the Philippines and Brazil for not coughing up their share of an escrow account.
The account was established in 1999 as part of the Master Settlement Agrement (MSA) the previous year between the state and major cigarette manufacturers. Companies not part of the MSA must pay into the escrow account to sell cigarettes in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma this year received an MSA payment total of $64.4 million,
Edmondson announced in April. Seventy-five percent ($46.7 million) was deposited into the state's Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Fund, which now contains over $370 million.
Edmondson is now suing Paraguay-based Tabacalera Nazionale, Philippines-based Prime Mover Manufacuring Corp. and Brazil-based Sudamax Industria e Comercia de Cigarros. He alleges they still haven't made their 2006 payment based on the previous year's sales in Oklahoma.
The three are governed by Oklahoma's "non-participating manufacturer" law that requires companies to cover the cost of possible future litigation by the state.
States are again hurting under the MSA agreement this year as Big Tobacco firms continue to withhold payments over legal disputes,
LNL reported. Such withholdings amounted to 11 percent of the states' expected total payment for 2007 of $6.75 billion.
Edmondson's office filed suit against the three companies Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court. His announcement did not specify how much the suit seeks from each.
