British American Tobacco Corp. In 2012 British American Tobacco, along with Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco, sued the Australian Commonwealth government. At the High Court, they argued that the Commonwealth's plain packaging legislation was unconstitutional because it usurped the companies' intellectual property rights and good will on other than just terms. However, the challenge was unsuccessful. In November 2014, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) fined BAT £650,000 after it determined that the company glutted the Belgian market with tobacco products with the likelihood these products would illegally find themselves back into the UK, with UK excise taxes not paid. The event highlighted
Plain tobacco packaging regulations to enable standardised packaging of tobacco products came into force on 14 March 2018. Distributors were given six weeks to clear old stock and following this retailers were given a further six weeks to dispose of old stock. As a result, only standardised tobacco packaging was permissible after 6 June 2018. Discussion of the need for standardised packaging (formerly called plain packaging), the passage of the legislation through Parliament, and its subsequent coming into force took six years. In April 2012, following an inquiry by the Māori Affairs Select Committee, Government (on recommendation of the then Associate Minister of