JTI Ireland has welcomed today’s decision by the Commercial Court, in which the court refused an application by the State to have various questions it has on the lawfulness of its own plain packaging legislation referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
In its ruling, the Court said that such an application would be “unnecessary, premature and wasteful of costs”.
“We welcome the court’s decision today” said JTI Ireland General Manager Igor Dzaja. “From the outset, we said that it was unnecessary to refer these questions because the CJEU is already looking at a similar referral from the UK Courts. The outcome of this UK case will be absolutely critical to the right of any EU Member State to introduce plain packaging, which is why we asked the Government to wait for a decision before enacting the legislation.
“An Irish referral would also have had the potential to delay the European Court’s decision, which is something we want to avoid.”
Dzaja added that as new EU tobacco regulations are scheduled to come in to force across all Member States in May 2016, “we are keen to see this issue resolved as quickly as possible.”
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
