Tactics range from the exploitation of farmers and use of child labour to threats and intimidation, and a “continent-spanning spy network”. All to pursue BAT’s own commercial goals.

Examples from across the region feature on an illustrative map, and below are links to further reading which provide a comprehensive understanding of the company’s activities in Africa.

Sabotage, Deceit and Duplicity: British American Tobacco Uncovered

Significant new reports and briefings can be found on the BAT Uncovered micro-site of TCRG’s partner organisation STOP at exposetobacco.org

These cover new allegations of bribery across Africa, and dirty tricks in South Africa.

Briefing papers on BAT’s alleged capture of state agencies, potential complicity in smuggling in South Africa and alleged connection to an attempted bribery conspiracy in Zimbabwe will be published on this site in due course.

Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa

Analysis of whistleblower documents by the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath found a “large number of questionable payments” made by BAT over a five-year period.  This huge international corporation used these payments to influence policy and undermine competing tobacco companies, both international and local.

• Read the report summary: Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa: An Analysis of British American Tobacco’s Questionable Payments

BAT made payments impacting ten countries in East and Central Africa. They were made to politicians and civil servants, staff of competitor companies, journalists, farmers and others involved in positions of potential influence.  The use of these payments appeared to be systematized and supported by senior staff, including in BAT’s London office.

The full report details the payments and describes the serious consequences of this unethical business activity. It also suggests that governments globally should more closely examine BAT’s behaviour.

• Read the full report: “Unlawful Bribes?”: A documentary analysis showing British American Tobacco’s use of payments to secure policy and competitive advantage in Africa¹

The leaked source documents are publicly available in the UCSF Industry Documents Library Africa Collection (University of California, San Francisco).

Dirty Tricks in South Africa

In the report on British American Tobacco in South Africa, TCRG researchers explain how BAT has fought to maintain its dominance of this key market over decades, in the face of increased competition and growing illicit trade. The report describes how the company has used “any means necessary” to hold its position, including paying another company to run a “massive secret surveillance and informant network in Southern Africa on behalf of BAT”.

The report details BAT’s use of third party service providers, allegedly overseen and run by senior operatives at BAT’s London headquarters.  It also explains how BAT is “yet to face meaningful consequences for its actions either in the region or at home in the U.K.” after the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped its five-year investigation in January 2021.

BAT has repeatedly denied accusations of corporate espionage, corruption and law-breaking,² but new analysis of leaked documents raises serious questions about BAT’s activities in South Africa, particularly in relation to tobacco smuggling and tax evasion.

The research by the TCRG was carried out in collaboration with BBC’s Panorama, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Organized Crime and Reporting Project.

• Read the report: British American Tobacco in South Africa: Any Means Necessary

See also:

The BBC’s Panorama documentary programme, broadcast on 13 September 2021, which “unveils new revelations about the corrupt practices deployed by one of Britain’s biggest companies.”³

• Watch ‘Dirty Secrets of the Cigarette Business’ (BBC iPlayer, UK only, registration required)
• Watch on BBC World Saturday 18 September 2021 (Africa link, switch to other regions at the bottom of the page, note times are GMT)

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Read: Smoke Screen: BAT’s agents brokered bribe proposal⁴
• Listen: Smoke Screen: Love, bribes, lies and spies in the tobacco industry

Victoria Hollingsworth tells the true story of corrupt practices behind the scenes at British American Tobacco. Hear from the very people caught up in this world as the Bureau sinks deep into the dirty underbelly of the tobacco industry in South Africa.

BAT in Africa: A History of Double Standards

TobaccoTactics details the history of BAT’s double standards, exposing a difference between its stated goals and principles, and its activities in low and middle-income African countries.  It includes links to earlier allegations against BAT, featured in a 2015 Panorama programme and media coverage at the time.

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: A History Double Standards

This page brings the story up to date…

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: Continuing Allegations of Misbehaviour

References

The post The BAT Files: How British American Tobacco Bought Influence in Africa appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Here we look at the some of the research published since then which have added to our understanding of the company.

For more details on the pages published by Tobacco Tactics on British American Tobacco in Africa visit The BAT Files.

Introduction

In 2015, the BBC’s Panorama programme used documents from an industry whistleblower to highlight allegations of alleged bribery by British American Tobacco.

According to the evidence supplied by former BAT employee Paul Hopkins, the firm allegedly arranged bribes totalling US$26,000 for officials in Rwanda, Burundi and Comoros Islands. BAT insisted it conducted its business with honesty, integrity and transparency.

Even though BAT and those featured in the program issued denials about the allegations, in 2015 the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began investigating, leading to a formal criminal investigation into BAT and associated persons in 2017.

In January 2021 the SFO concluded: “Following extensive investigation and a comprehensive review of the available evidence, the SFO has concluded its investigation into British American Tobacco, its subsidiaries and associated persons. The evidence in this case did not meet the evidential test for prosecution as defined in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.”

The SFO added that it would “continue to offer assistance to the ongoing investigations of other law enforcement partners. We thank our international law enforcement partners, and in particular the Kenyan Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), for their assistance in the SFO’s investigation.”⁵

Document analysis

In 2021, new research was published adding to the understanding of BAT’s operations in Africa. Panorama followed up on its 2015 programme, which mainly focussed on East and Central Africa, with a new investigation into operations in Southern Africa. ⁶ Alongside this STOP published its own reports.

The Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath also did a deeper analysis of the Hopkins documents and a second set of documents disclosed from a court case in Uganda involving former BAT employee Solomon Muyita. Both Hopkins and Muyita had invoked BAT’s whistleblower policy.^{78 9}

BAT payments

This analysis looked at 236 payments totalling US$601,502 made between July 2008 and May 2013 to dozens of people including politicians, civil servants, journalists, farmers and staff at competitor companies.

BAT made payments impacting 10 countries Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Payments took multiple forms including hand-delivered cash, bank wire transfers, spending money, cars, campaign donations, per diems, and plane tickets.

According to the research, the payments were used for two broad purposes. To obtain information and influence policy and to gather information and undermine competitors. The authors conclude:

“The available evidence suggests BAT’s use of payments in Africa was extensive, systematised, and supported at a high level within parts of the company. Payments were used to buy political and competitive advantage.”¹⁰

According to the analysis of the documents sets, the information suggests payments were a routine part of BAT’s business practices in Africa, with senior staff aware of the practice. Third party companies, referred to as “service providers”, were contracted to undertake consultancy services for BAT to make the payments.

BAT’s official policy on corruption as stated on its website is: “Corruption causes distortion in markets and harms economic, social and political development, particularly in developing countries. Our Standards of Business Conduct make clear that it is wholly unacceptable for our companies and employees to be involved or implicated in any way in corrupt practice.”¹¹

Influencing policy

As the original research in 2015 revealed, BAT had been aiming to influence policy changes in several countries. The analysis of these two document sets confirmed and expanded this area of concern.

Attempts were made to frustrate the passing of legislation based on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Burundi, Comoros, Rwanda and Uganda. Civil servants and politicians in particular were targeted through the payments. As a result tobacco control legislation in three of the countries is still not compliant with the FCTC while Uganda had a bitter four-year battle to pass its Tobacco Control Act.

The payments were also used to undermine efforts to control tobacco smuggling. In Kenya, BAT campaigned to have its own system in place for tracking tobacco products rather than an independent one as mandated by the Illicit Trade Protocol.¹⁰

Sabotaging competitors

BAT has a very strong market position in Africa and looks to maintain and expand that position. As such payments appear linked to gaining information on competitors – these include Mastermind Tobacco Kenya, Continental Tobacco Uganda and Leaf Tobacco & Commodities Uganda. It also targeted international rival Japan Tobacco International (JTI) which was operating in Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic Congo.

Tactics used included funding a fake trade union to foment labour unrest, pay for sources inside companies and take advantage of complaints to regulators.

Other examples of payments

The evidence that BAT used payments to influence policy and damage competitors between over a number of years is not the first time that a tobacco company has been accused of such activity.

Evidence from Australia suggests that the tobacco industry may have used bribery in the 1970s to help bring down a minority Tasmanian government attempting to impose a tobacco tax, although the police inquiry cleared the politician in question.¹² A 2000 court case brought by the European Union and its member states accused tobacco companies of bribing public officials as part of its global scheme to smuggle cigarettes.¹³¹⁴ Maithripala Sirisena who later became the President of Sri Lanka in 2015, alleged that, when trying to introduce large pictorial health warnings as Health Minister, BAT tried to bribe him, although this was “categorically denied” by the company.¹⁵

The findings also align with widespread evidence from South Africa of payments to monitor and undermine competitors.

Tobacco smuggling in Mali

While the two document sets from the whistleblowers provided evidence of wide-ranging payments across many countries, another investigation in 2021 uncovered further concerns.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) had access to internal BAT documents as well as trade data and interviews with participants to document activities in the country.¹⁶. It found that BAT took advantage of the precarious military situation and over-supplied the country with cigarettes. In doing so this keeps BAT brands in circulation; but also generates profits for jihadists and militias.

“This is their playground,” Hana Ross, a University of Cape Town economist who researches tobacco, said of the industry. “They know they can get away with stuff. It’s much easier to bribe. It’s much easier to cheat the system,’’ she said. “Governments here are generally weak. This is where they do things that they don’t dare to do in Europe anymore.”¹⁶

A spokesperson for BAT said: “At BAT, we have established anti-illicit trade teams operating at global and local levels. We also have robust policies and procedures in place to fight this issue and fully support regulators, governments and international organizations in seeking to eliminate all forms of illicit trade.”

Further reading

BAT Uncovered

British American Tobacco in South Africa: Any Means Necessary

Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa: An Analysis of British American Tobacco’s Questionable Payments

Tobacco Tactics Resources

The BAT Files

British American Tobacco: Dirty Deeds in Africa

References

The post British American Tobacco in Africa: Continuing Allegations of Misbehaviour appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Smoking in Comoros

According to the World Health Organization Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Smoking 2000-2025, the smoking prevalence in the country by 2020 was 21.9%. ¹⁹ According to the Tobacco Atlas, every year more than 200 people die of tobacco-related disease in Comoros, while more than 55,000 people over the age of 15 years old use tobacco each day.²⁰

Roadmap to Tobacco Control

In 2006, Comoros ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).²¹ In an attempt to address the tobacco epidemic and protect public health, the government of Comoros has since been developing tobacco control legislation.²² In May 2010, four years after becoming a party to the FCTC, the government introduced a legislative health order aimed at limiting smoking on public transport and advertising of tobacco products.²³

A summary of how Comoros’s measures up to the WHO’s MPOWER measures can be seen below (Image 1):

Image 1: The WHO MPOWER summary for Comoros, 2019. (source: World Health Organization ²⁴

More recently, in 2011, the Law on Tobacco came into force.²⁵ Although the law covers the following areas and introduces penalties for non-compliance, it is not compliant with the FCTC:

• Partial protection against exposure to tobacco smoke;
• Partial regulation of Tobacco Advertising Promotion and Sponsorship (TAPS);
• Text only health warnings;
• Restrictions on sale of tobacco to minors.²⁶

A number of subsequent legislative health orders have since been adopted to strengthen specific areas of the Law, including the introduction of health warnings covering 40% of the “total surface area of each one of the principal surfaces”.²⁷ Similarly, an Inter-ministerial order, enacted in April 2013, provided clear guidance on the criteria of those to be considered “tobacco vendors” and required that points-of-sale for tobacco products have a “notice panel reminding people of the danger associated with tobacco consumption”.²⁸

Obstacles to Implementation

Nevertheless, these measures fail to comply with the standards required by the FCTC, highlighting the need for stronger measure to achieve FCTC compliance.
It is worth noting that is a common tactic of the tobacco industry to use its influence and leverage its political relationships to support the passage of weak tobacco control legislation, often because once some form of legislation is enacted, there is often less political will to develop further, stronger tobacco control legislation.²⁹

It is also important to mention that as suggested by Tobacco Control Laws, the legal measures in effect in Comoros are complicated to interpret and implement due to inconsistencies and contradictory provisions in the law and implementing instruments. Therefore, the regulatory status code and analysis of the measures may be subject to several alternative interpretations, leaving loopholes for the tobacco industry to take advantage. ³⁰

Extensive research published in 2021 by the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, a partner in STOP, and in conjunction with BBC’s Panorama, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project uncovered multiple instances of British American Tobacco seeking to frustrate tobacco control measures in Africa.

• For more details visit The BAT Files on TobaccoTactics

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Africa’s Tobacco Epidemic
• A list of TobaccoTactics pages on Africa

References

The post Comoros- Country Profile appeared first on TobaccoTactics.