NC among states settling with tobacco companies

A decade-long dispute over payments that tobacco companies owe 19 states has been resolved with an agreement that will bring $108 million to North Carolina and ongoing annual payments.
Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office announced the agreement on Wednesday.
Under an original agreement reached in 1988, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard agreed to pay the states more than $200 billion over 25 years to settle lawsuits related to smoking. Other companies later joined the agreement.
But the companies and the states have had a disagreement over some of the payments, which has now been resolved, avoiding costly litigation, Cooper said in a news release.
North Carolina has received more than $1 billion from the agreement. Its annual payment of about $23 million could have been jeopardized if the dispute continued, Cooper said.
The money is used for health education and economic development to offset the impact of tobacco’s decline.