attorneys either controlled or had a say in determining which research projects would be undertaken and by whom. The way it was structured allowed the companies to claim an attorney-client privilege whenever necessary. Comment was made on this very subject by Federal Judge Sarokin in Haines v Liggett Group, Inc 140 F.R.D. 681 D.N.J. 1992 who said defendants used the attorney- client privilege to hide documents-never intending to give full disclosure, and he called it a fraud to mislead the public
So, they keep the public out of their business and they shield the Brass by giving them just enough information to make decisions.
So that in 1994 Philip Morris et al could go before congress and swear
under oath that cigarettes and/or nicotine was not addictive, even though there was evidence as far back as the 60's to the contrary.
The attorneys made that possible. The attorneys were Bag Men.
Bag men used to keep 30 million pages of documents kept hidden from legal review. Documents that detailed the poisons the Tobacco dealers were trying to hide.
Attorneys were used to oversee crucial research. Law degrees were essentially used as cloaks to conduct the nasty business they wanted to keep concealed. Being an attorney for tobacco was again, more like being a consiglieri or a bag man, than legal defense.
If you've seen the movie The Firm, you get the idea. Except instead of banks in the Caymans, Phillip Morris had a top secret lab in Germany and instead of dirty money it was likely Polonium they were concealing - The same type of Polonium used in the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006.
It is well known that Philip Morris’s Osdene directed biological experiments on nicotine addiction and carcinogenesis induced from cigarette smoke in Philip Morris’s offshore laboratory in...Germany, to avoid discovery in US litigation.64
Philip Morris’s consultant Alfred Wolf88,89 urged the company to conduct animal research to determine PO-210 retention in the lung...
Osdene, ... who ran the low-level PO-210 measurement laboratory at Philip Morris,92 refused to respond to questions regarding PO-210 during a 1997 deposition taken by plaintiffs’ counsel in the seminal Minnesota tobacco litigation. Osdene, who was at the time a subject of a Justice Department inquiry into fraud perpetuated by the tobacco manufacturers, invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination 123 times.
Q. Polonium 210 is a radioactive substance, is it not, sir?
A. Same response. [On advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based on my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because there is an ongoing parallel criminal investigation.]9
A judge cited the German lab specifically as a tool for evidence suppression.
The complex and incestuous bond between Philip Morris and one law firm is further evidenced by the extent to which they handled matters far and beyond just defense litigation. They also
advised the company on business strategy, including how to protect the image of the cigarette company and how to deal with concerns about the effects of its products.
Again, an ideal situation to use law degrees as cloaks.
my emphasis in quotes.