Big Tobacco Gets Crushed by Tiny Uruguay

Six years ago, when Philip Morris International took Uruguay to court over the country’s aggressive anti-smoking policies, few people would have bet on the gauchos. After all, Uruguay’s gross domestic product of $53 billion was about two-thirds of the tobacco giant’s yearly sales in 2015, and its newly elected president was a septuagenarian chain smoker.

But the small South American nation, best known as the first nation to legalize marijuana, wasn’t just blowing smoke. On July 8, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, an arbitration court run by the World Bank, ruled that Uruguay not only had the right to continue its in-your-face anti-cigarette marketing, but also ordered Philip Morris to reimburse the country for some $7 million in legal costs for the drawn-out court battle.