For the second time in two years, an exposé in the newspaper, the Guardian, says that BAT, along with other multinational tobacco firms “have threatened governments in at least eight countries in Africa demanding they axe or dilute the kind of protections that have saved millions of lives in the West.”According to the report, BAT, one of the world’s leading cigarette manufacturers, is using the courts “to try to block the Kenyan and Ugandan governments’ attempts to bring in regulations to limit the harm caused by smoking.”The Guardian claims that in one of the undisclosed court document in Kenya, which it has seen, BAT’s lawyers are demanding the country’s High Court “quash in its entirety” a package of anti-smoking regulations and what it calls a “capricious” tax plan.The case is now before the Supreme Court after BAT Kenya lost in the High Court and the Appeal Court.The Guardian report follows a BBC investigation in November 2015, which claimed that BAT illegally paid politicians and civil servants in countries in East Africa to boost sales. The payments were revealed when a whistleblower shared hundreds of secret documents.At the time, BAT told the BBC: “The truth is that we do not and will not tolerate corruption, no matter where it takes place.”BAT Kenya has approximately 450 full-time employees in Kenya. On its website it says that its operations have “always been guided by the highest standards of excellence.”

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