US court votes to allow EU lawsuit against Reynolds

A US federal appeals court voted 8-5 on Monday to allow an EU lawsuit to proceed against RJR Nabisco its affiliates and successors that alleges RJ Reynolds violated the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), according to a story by Richard Craver for the Winston-Salem Journal.

The lawsuit, initially filed in October 2002, alleges Reynolds directed, managed and controlled a decade-long global money-laundering scheme with Colombian and Russian criminal organizations.

The case was heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. In April 2014, a three-member panel of the appeals court ruled the EU and its countries were within their rights to sue in US courts.

David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds, was quoted as saying the decision was disappointing.

‘We are disappointed in (Monday’s) seven-to-five [sic] decision of the Second Circuit not to reconsider the panel’s ruling that RICO applies extraterritorially, and we agree with the four dissenting opinions that this important issue warrants further review,’ Howard said in an email to the Journal.

‘Moreover, we have many other strong legal grounds for securing dismissal of this case, and we look forward to presenting them to the district court on remand.

‘We continue to believe that this lawsuit is entirely baseless in both law and fact.’

Craver’s story is at: http://www.journalnow.com/business/business_beat/court-allows-eu-suit-against-reynolds-to-move-forward/article_e4c28ba0-e231-11e4-b1f2-f397007fabce.html.