JT International SA v. Commonwealth of Australia
Australia High Court
[2012] HCA 43 (5 October 2012)
- Written by Curtis Parvin, JD
Facts
The Commonwealth of Australia’s (Australia) (defendant) Tobacco Plain Packaging Act (the TPP Act) required uniform plain packaging on tobacco products and precluded nonconforming marketing and identifiers, including limits on the use of trademarks. JT International (JTI) (plaintiff) and British American Tobacco Australasia Limited & Ors (BAT) (plaintiff) (collectively, the tobacco companies) marketed and sold tobacco products in Australia. The tobacco companies filed suit against Australia in Australia High Court, claiming that the TPP Act constituted an unconstitutional acquisition of the tobacco companies’ intellectual-property rights. The high court—Australia’s highest jurisdictional court—accepted the constitutional challenge as a matter of original jurisdiction. The court consolidated the suits, and other tobacco companies intervened to join the constitutional challenge.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (French, C.J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 832,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.