As a result, the industry sent more than 100 boxes containing 39,000 documents, including secret communications among industry law firms and between the companies' lawyers and executives, to lawyers for the state of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which are suing the tobacco industry. The papers could begin appearing in court as early as tomorrow.
"This landmark decision puts an end to the most egregious corporate fraud in American history," Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III said in a statement.
The industry also delivered copies to Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) who had demanded the documents as Congress grapples with tobacco legislation. Bliley said he would conduct a bipartisan review of the documents and hopes to release them to the public on the Internet.
The documents could play a pivotal role in congressional debate over national tobacco legislation. Last year, the release of documents suggesting that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for years had targeted teen-agers in its marketing intensified the opposition to granting the industry broad protection from lawsuits.
The merger - double the previous record of $37 billion - stunned Wall Street and quickly raised concerns from consumer groups, bank experts and lawmakers because it would challenge Depression-era laws barring banks, securities and insurance firms from getting into one another's businesses. Citibank is the nation's second-largest bank, and Travelers is the parent of Salomon Smith Barney Inc.
Assuming the regulatory hurdles can be cleared, the combined entity will usher in a new era in financial services in which global financial supermarkets battle for customers by providing "one-stop" shopping. Consumers eventually could take out life insurance, buy stocks, pay bills and obtain credit
cards, all with a phone call or a visit to a branch office.
"This is a transforming merger," said John Reed, Citicorp's chairman and chief executive, who will serve as co-chairman and co-chief executive with Travelers' chairman and chief executive, Sanford Weill.
Even so, it is unlikely to settle completely a 20-year controversy over whether the formation is a fluke of weathering, as most planetary scientists believe, or the work of an ancient alien civilization, as some imagine.
04-07-98
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