BALTIMORE (Legal Newsline) — Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has announced the Office of the Attorney General has cleared the final hurdle in a case against tobacco companies, allowing the state to recoup approximately $45 million.
Last year, the Court of Special Appeals ruled in favor of awarding a year’s worth of payments owed under the 1998 master settlement agreement with tobacco manufacturers. The Maryland Court of Appeals recently denied further review of the decision, meaning it will stay in place.
"This is great news for the state of Maryland, and these are funds that are rightfully owed and can be put to use for taxpayer benefit," Frosh said. "This was a complex case that took a lot of hard work over a long time."
In an earlier decision, the Court of Special Appeals decided that an arbitration panel erred when it withheld some of the money Maryland should have received from annual settlement payments from cigarette manufacturers.
Assistant attorneys general Matt Fader, John Leovy, Aravind Muthukrishnan, David Lapp, Michael Bouyea, Kirstin Lustila and Joshua Auerbach handled the case.