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
Plain tobacco packaging in EU countries in May 2016, the option for the Member States to introduce plain packaging. Legal scholars consider plain packaging to be consistent with primary European law and German law. The directive adopted April 3, 2014 explicitly states that 28 EU countries have the option of implementing plain packaging, a provision upheld on May 4, 2016 by the European Court of Justice as valid when dismissing a tobacco industry legal challenge. In December 2010, a UMP member of the French Parliament tabled a Member's Bill aimed at creating plain cigarette packaging. However, the bill did not pass despite ongoing