Dollars and Jens
Thursday, January 15, 2004
EU Considers Money Laundering Lawsuit Against Tobacco Cos
The E.U. accused the cigarette makers of intentionally oversupplying countries in eastern Europe, so that the surplus would be smuggled into the 15-nation E.U., resulting in billions of dollars in lost taxes.
This has been tried by cities in the U.S. against gun dealers, hasn't it?
If smugglers move cigarettes from Hungary to Germany, from the perspective of Phillip Morris that will increase demand for cigarettes in Hungary and decrease it in Germany. Is Phillip Morris obligated to discern the reason for demand patterns, to try to outguess the market, and to require smugglers to bid the prices in the two countries together, or does the EU believe that Phillip Morris *is* anticipating the demand shifts created by the smugglers, and thinks they should knock it off and do the same thing in response to market forces as they materialize?
So much of what lawyers do just doesn't even fit into my epistemology.
