Big Tobacco challenges UK plain packs

Big Tobacco has taken the British government to court, arguing that the UK's "plain packaging" legislation unlawfully takes away its intellectual property.

Companies including Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Group are challenging the legislation, which takes effect next May, because it will prohibit all forms of branding on tobacco packaging, including colours and logos.

The rule, known as "plain packaging", would also require graphic warnings illustrating the health problems smoking can cause. It aims to reduce smoking's death toll by making the packs less attractive.

Tobacco companies lost a similar case in Australia in 2012 when the High Court backed the federal government's plain-packaging legislation, saying the law involved regulating, not acquiring, brands and logos.

In the British case, which will be heard in a six-day hearing at London's Royal Courts of Justice, the companies are arguing that the law represents the seizure of their property without any compensation.

"Our trademarks have a capital value ... and that value has been effectively removed," said lawyer David Anderson, representing Japan Tobacco International in court on Thursday.

He argued that trademarks are an "instrument of commercial strategy".

In Australia, the only country to have so far implemented plain packaging, the companies say there has been an increase in black market tobacco and sales of lower-priced cigarettes.

While the companies failed in their challenge to Australian law, they say they are more confident about the UK challenge because they only have to prove that their intellectual property was illegally taken.

Aside from Australia and Britain, plain packaging has been approved in Ireland, Hungary and France, while more than a dozen other countries - including Belgium, Canada and Pakistan - have either proposed, or are talking about proposing, similar measures.