Yesmoke Tobacco S.p.A.

Yesmoke Starts up Again – the State Is Beaten

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The T.A.R., the Piedmont Regional Court, has sided with Yesmoke in the cigarette maker’s clash with the AAMS - the Autonomous Company of State Monopolies (Azienda Autonoma Monopoli di Stato) and the Ministry of Finance. This morning Yesmoke was able to start up its production again.

The documents Yesmoke presented for the renewal of authorization to manage the fiscal deposit for the manufacture of cigarettes were all correct. The sentence is final; no one can ask Yesmoke for them anymore.

Yesmoke’s employees have returned to work from their redundancy period and the company has begun producing cigarettes again at top speed. The forced shutdown lasted 88 days, but it should never have happened. Now the second stage of the adventure begins, Yesmoke will be suing the AAMS and the Ministry of Finance for the damages suffered.

Yesmoke, whose production is almost all destined to export, was not able to respect its contracts in this period and chaos ensued. No one could understand why a company that produces and provides employment had to fight to stay open. “They are creating a disaster for you; how in the world can they do this?” asked puzzled customers in other countries, customers who had already paid for the cigarettes that Yesmoke was forbidden to manufacture.

And it isn’t easy to explain that the State machinery, in its italic degeneration, makes no effort to hide that it is catering to the interests of foreign tobacco makers. It is trying to bring about Yesmoke’s failure by creating the greatest financial damage possible.

Today at Yesmoke it is a day for celebration, the workers are drinking to the future… just because someone has let them go back to work.

• Sentence of the Piemonte Regional Court (T.A.R.) of 11 February 2011

• February 14th, 2011
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• Tags: cigarette pack • cigarette production • Italy • judgment • state monopoly