Three tobacco companies are required to pay a total of USD 24 million to tobacco farmers in Pennsylvania and Maryland under a recent North Carolina court ruling.

The companies, Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris USA unit, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and Loews Corp.'s Lorillard Tobacco unit, must make the payments through 2010 under the ruling, which is subject to appeal.
Under the ruling, the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004 didn't affect the companies' obligation under a 1999 trust agreement. The Trust agreement called for tobacco farmers in 14 states to receive payments from the major tobacco companies to compensate for reduced demand for tobacco leaf as cigarette consumption declines.
The companies had asserted that they no longer had to make payments to farmers in Pennsylvania and Maryland under the reform act, which provided for payments to tobacco farmers in all the grower states except Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.