Tobacco giants would pay $32.5B to provinces, smokers in ’unprecedented’ settlement proposal

But unlike a settlement reached with U.S. tobacco companies in the 1990s, it doesn’t include measures to reduce tobacco use or public disclosure of documents

Three tobacco giants are proposing to pay close to $25 billion to provinces and territories and more than $4 billion to tens of thousands of Quebec smokers and their loved ones as part of a corporate restructuring process triggered by a long-running legal battle.

A proposed plan of arrangement was filed in an Ontario court Thursday after the companies — JTI-Macdonald Corp., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. — spent more than five years in negotiations with their creditors.