Major tobacco companies have asked the US Supreme Court to review whether Pennsylvania courts were justified in overturning an arbitration panel ruling to reduce Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) payments, the Winston-Salem Journal said.

A panel of three former federal judges in 2013 reduced the MSA payment to Pennsylvania and five other states for failing to enforce escrow settlement provisions involving tobacco companies not participating in MSA. A year later a Pennsylvania lower court restored USD 120 million (EUR 104 million) in state MSA funds, saying the panel exceeded its authority. The ruling was upheld by a state appeals court in 2015, the newspaper said on its website.
Philip Morris USA and RJ Reynolds Tobacco were among plaintiffs in a writ of certiorari filed 21 April that asks the Supreme Court to take up the case, the Journal said.