Hey guys. As most of you know from my comments on Calibrated Confidence Corner on BTFDtv.com and Special Reserve 200 Proof on UStream, I have been detouring away from Index exposure and have been seeking individual firm exposure. Philip Morris may provide that opportunity now.
Philip Morris is part of large syndicate of corporations looking to have their products included in the Pacific Rim Treaty as laid out by the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks between the US, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Brunei Darussalam. Businessweek has a piece up in this weeks issue about PM and their arguement regarding being left out of the treaty having an impact on PM's intellectual property rights.
To wit:
"Tobacco companies hope it is included in the pact because they would have more options to fight restrictions. If so, governments would be reluctant to require plain packaging or other marketing limits out of fear they’d trigger costly legal battles with tobacco makers"
I could imagine that Philip Morris would be sketch over the health concerns being laid-out within the treaty as highlighted in the Partnership leaked by Wikileaks just last week
The US is pushing very hard to impose Intellectual Property rights upon their partners in this deal. The whole agreement itself is crucial but I want to focus on the Tobacco angle and how this may impact Philip Morris stock price. After the failure of SOPA to step all over indivudals, Julian Assange has this comment regarding TPP:
"The TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons,"
The complexity of IP rights is expanded upon through the WTO's TRIPS. The issue here is that adoption of this treaty may have impacts upon discouraging other nations to adopted controls such as Australia's plan packaging initiative regarding the images that are placed upon cigarette packs. Beyond just the implications to Philip Morris, Wikileaks highlights other concerns to note:
"The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP."
I strongly advise you to read the document, which is embedded below. I'll share more as I'm able to.
