Tobacco firm shielded research papers: WPOST

WASHINGTON (Reuter) The Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.
appears to have developed a detailed procedure for passing
sensitive research documents through lawyers to protect the
cigarette maker against lawsuits, the Washington Post reported
in Tuesday's editions.
The newspaper cited a 1985 company memo as evidence of a
central allegation against the tobacco industry that to
shield documents from becoming public in court, companies
funneled sensitive research through their lawyers.
Companies could then stamp the documents as falling under
attorneyclient privilege, gaining a measure of protection from
legal adversaries, said Stanton Glantz, an antitobacco activist
at the University of California who provided the memo to the
Washington Post.
An attorney for Brown & Williamson said the procedure
described in the memo was a temporary system, neither illegal
nor unethical, that merely gave the company's lawyers a way to
review research doucments, the Post said.
``It is simply a routing mechanism for review,'' trial
counsel David Bernick was cited as saying.
The twopage memo, dated Jan. 30, 1985, described a system
for ensuring that that all but the most noncontroversial
documents passing between Brown & Williamson and its corporate
parent, BritishAmerican tobacco, be forwarded through law
firms.

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