Tobacco companies deny conspiracy
(<a href=www.reuters.co.uk target=_blank>Reuters) - Lawyers for cigarette makers have sought to knock down the government's $280 billion (156 billion pounds) racketeering case against the industry, telling a federal judge that they had already addressed the government's concerns by changing the way they do business. Presenting the industry's opening statements in the biggest racketeering case in U.S. history, lawyers for five major tobacco companies said the government had no grounds to seek major penalties against them because the companies had already curtailed cigarette marketing and conceded the dangers of smoking. "If what we said in the past (about smoking and health) was fraud, it certainly is not occurring today," Phillip Morris lawyer Dan Webb told U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler on Wednesday.