Claims by the European Community that R.J. Reynolds Nabisco Inc. was complicit with black market cigarette importers and money launderers in Europe have been dismissed by a federal judge in Brooklyn who found that the European Community, which has been subsumed into the European Union, is not a foreign state.
Eastern District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, in an opinion issued last week in European Community v. R.J. Reynolds Nabisco Inc., 1:02-cv-05771, also denied the plaintiffs, which included numerous European Community member states, permission to amend their lawsuit.
