Plain tobacco packaging protection, and have since been publicly refuted by customs officials, and the report itself indicated that it had relied extensively on unaudited figures supplied by the tobacco industry itself. In June 2011, Imperial Tobacco Australia launched a secondary media campaign, deriding plain packaging legislation as part of a Nanny state. In June 2011, Philip Morris International announced it was using the provisions in a Hong Kong/Australia treaty to demand compensation for Australia's plain packaging anti-smoking legislation. As a US-based company, Philip Morris could not sue under the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement. The company rearranged its assets to become a Hong
Tobacco packaging warning messages anti-smoking campaigns by placing the new warnings on packaging violates the companies' free speech rights. Additionally, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc. claimed that the graphic labels are an unconstitutional way of forcing tobacco companies to engage in anti-smoking advocacy on the government's behalf. A First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, represented the tobacco companies in the case, contending that requiring graphic warning labels on a lawful product cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. The Association of National Advertisers and the American Advertising Federation also filed a brief in the suit, arguing that