MONTREAL — Imperial Tobacco Canada is the latest company to receive a temporary reprieve from compensating 100,000 Quebec smokers after securing creditor protection in an Ontario court.
The two companies, along with Benson & Hedges, lost an appeal of a landmark $15-billion class-action lawsuit in the Quebec Court of Appeal on March 1. The Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health led two class actions against the companies and won in 2015, when Quebec Superior Court Justice Brian Riordan ordered the companies to make payments of more than $15 billion to smokers who either fell ill or were addicted.“Imperial Tobacco Canada continues to disagree with the judgments by the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Quebec Superior Court,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.