Looking for a Certain...Certainty

By Rick Horowitz

Sympathetic? Of course I'm sympathetic. Who wouldn't be sympathetic? A couple of the most famous names in all the world are struggling to keep their heads above water, to keep on keeping on. They're peering into the future with fear and trembling in their hearts. I won't even mention their lungs.

You think it's easy being a tobacco giant?

They're still talking, the papers say. The folks from Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, the two biggest players in Tobacco Land, are still talking to the attorneys general of the various states. They're trying to bang out a settlement for the rash of lawsuits against the tobacco firms -- the ones already filed and the ones sure to follow. The talks are not going well.

"Chaotic" -- that's the word from one insider. Not only are the tobacco giants and the attorneys general miles apart in their positions, but now the attorneys general have started disagreeing among themselves about just how much they're willing to concede to the giants to get to yes.

And the biggest sticking point in the whole process? Liability. The tobacco giants don't want any. (There's a shock.) Their first offer was a one-time-only, $300 billion settlement fund -- sounds big, but doesn't last long. As soon as that money is gone, that's it; the giants could go on selling their products, but they'd be totally immune from future lawsuits. Forever.

No way, said the state A.G.s, and the two sides have been going back and forth ever since. But both sides do agree -- in principle at least, details to follow (maybe) -- that what the tobacco giants really need is predictability. They need to know how big a hit they're going to take if they sign on the dotted line.

The issue is "critical" to the industry, the stories say. Even the attorneys general realize, the stories say, that "for the discussions to be successful, cigarette companies and their shareholders had to be assured of financial certainty."

"Financial certainty." The cigarette companies and their shareholders want "financial certainty." Well, who doesn't?

Your average Joe working on the assembly line wants "financial certainty." Your average Moe holding up your average bank wants "financial certainty." Of course, your average Joe doesn't have the clout to make it happen, and your average Moe doesn't know whether he gets a bagful of loot this time -- or a bellyful of lead.

Besides, this is different. Tobacco giants can throw their weight around. And tobacco giants have to answer to those shareholders. Shareholders get nervous when they don't know where their next dividend is coming from, and how soon, and how big.

Maybe not as nervous as smokers get when they don't know where their next breath is coming from, but nervous nonetheless. Maybe not as nervous as smokers' families get when they don't know where the money for daddy's doctor bills is coming from, but nervous nonetheless. You have to feel for them.

If the tobacco giants and their shareholders simply knew how much a settlement was going to cost them, they could figure out how much harder they'd have to push their products, or how much more they'd have to charge for them, to make that money back. They could rest easy. It's all this uncertainty that's killing them.

I think we can make a deal.

The tobacco giants want certainty; I say we give them certainty. They want to know what the future holds; I say we tell them.

We tell them they've been getting away with murder for years, that starting today, they don't get away with murder anymore. We tell them the days of pitching poison, knowing it's poison, are over. We tell them we're prepared to haul them into every courtroom in the country willing to hear the evidence of what they knew and when they knew it and what they chose not to do about it. We tell them we're going after every penny they've got.

Is that enough "certainty" for them? Good.

I'm only trying to help.

5/16/97