R J Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. reported a slight rise in second-quarter profit but said third-quarter results would miss Wall Street expectations. The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company said operating profit edged up 2% to $211 million, or $2.29 a share, beating analysts' average estimate of $2.27, with help from its acquisition of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. Revenue was flat at $1.7 billion as steep increases in cigarette prices offset lower volume and higher promotional costs.

The Supreme Court asked the U.S. government for its view on a ruling that dismissed Canada's civil racketeering lawsuit accusing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and its affiliates of smuggling billions of cigarettes to avoid paying taxes. A U.S. appeals court upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit, which alleged the defendants tried to defraud Canada of tax revenue in the early 1990s with a scheme that shipped Canadian cigarette brands to the United States and then smuggled them back to Canada.

Reynolds American Inc., the No. 2 U.S. cigarette maker, said second-quarter profit more than doubled because it cut costs ahead of last week's $3-billion acquisition of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. Net income climbed to $151 million, or $1.77 a share, from $70 million, or 83 cents, a year earlier, the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company said. Sales fell 5.5% to $1.35 billion at the company, known as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. before the purchase.

R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson said a jury in Florida returned a verdict in their favor, finding the cigarette makers were not responsible for a smoker's illness. The jury in the case found there was "ample evidence" that Emmett Hall, who suffers from lung cancer and pulmonary disease, had been aware of the potential health risks of smoking and still had chosen to smoke, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said. R.J. Reynolds is a unit of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. lost its appeal of a court ruling that it violated a 1998 ban on outdoor advertising by posting advertisements at Nascar auto-racing events. The state Court of Appeal in San Diego upheld a decision in favor of California's challenge to Reynolds' advertising. The state argued that the tobacco company had wrongly kept outdoor billboards for a series of auto races named after its Winston cigarette brand up all year at a track outside San Francisco.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and its R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. unit received subpoenas in January as part of a federal grand jury investigation in New York, the company said. The subpoenas demand that the company turn over "documents relating to the sale and distribution of cigarettes in international markets," the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last May, the Los Angeles Times reported that R.J.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. lost its bid for a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a $165,000 award it paid a cancer-stricken Florida smoker who has since died. The court refused, without comment, to hear the second- largest U.S. tobacco company's arguments that it couldn't be penalized for selling a legal product. Floyd Kenyon, a retired schoolteacher, blamed R.J.