Jackson County Chancery Court Judge Jaye A. Bradley issued a ruling yesterday requiring Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. to pay an additional $8 million to the state.
Attorney General Jim Hood filed a lawsuit over the state's original settlement agreement that required the company to pay Mississippi for every cigarette it makes and ships. Hood argued that B&W made cigarettes but shipped them to a third party manufacturer, STAR. STAR tobacco then sold those cigarettes to consumers in Mississippi.
"The court agreed with our position that B&W could not use such trickery to avoid paying Mississippi for those cigarettes," Attorney General Jim Hood said in a statement.
Bradley also ordered the company to pay all the state's attorneys fees and costs.
"There is no dispute that during the time period of 1999 through 2002, B&W manufactured and shipped to STAR more than 7.5 billion cigarettes," Bradley wrote in his ruling. "Further, there is no dispute that during the relevant time period at least 600 million STAR cigarettes were sold in Mississippi. However, B&W did not include these STAR cigarettes within their calculations for payments made to Mississippi pursuant to the Settlement Agreement."
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