Granada is planning to seek additional guidance from the panel.eanwhile, Forte yesterday strengthened its still-tenuous defence by announcing it had raised a net pounds 108m from the sale of its US Travelodge hotel chain — just ahead of most expectations. M

One of the most contentious issues in the pounds 3.3bn hostile bid by Granada for Forte was left hanging in the air last night, following a High Court ruling that the Council of Forte could make up its own mind about how to bid its 50 per cent voting stake.
According to the ruling, the council – which holds just 0.08 per cent of the shares but half the votes – can accept or reject the Granada offer, or it can step aside and let ordinary shareholders decide Forte’s fate.It was widely speculated, however, that the Takeover Panel would force the council onto the sidelines if it decided on anything but neutrality. He has argued in more than 20 cases before the court, winning most of them.The defendants hit back at Massachusetts’ claim, with RJ Reynolds counsel Daniel Donahue arguing: “They seek to bypass the traditional principle that the injured party should be the one to file suit and that someone who sues on their behalf is subject to the same arguments.” The tobacco industry has never paid damages or settled a tobacco liability claim, in part because plaintiffs’ lawyers – who could only hope to recover damages for an individual after years in court – eventually gave up.BAT’s shares shrugged off the latest development, closing 10p higher at 554p.Investment column, page 18. The suit claims $1bn of damages based on the amount of taxpayers’ funds that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has spent through Medicaid and other programmes to pay for smoking-related health-care costs.

It is time for cigarette companies to pay for the damage they have done,” Mr Harshbarger said.The case threatens to become a cause celebre thanks to the involvement on the state’s side of Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert who argued in the landmark Cipollone case before the Supreme Court, which established that some liability claims could go forward against the industry. It also seeks court orders requiring the defendants to disclose their research on smoking, addiction and the health consequences of smoking.”It is time to snuff out this deadly and deceptive conspiracy It is time for the industry to be forced to tell the truth. For too long, the wrong people have paid too much in staggering human and financial costs for a poisonous product peddled by tobacco giants through allegedly deceptive means.”The 75-page complaint he filed alleges that the tobacco industry conspired to mislead the public by denying that cigarettes cause cancer, by denying that they are addictive and by denying that the industry manipulates nicotine levels. The tobacco industry came under renewed attack in the US yesterday as the state of Massachusetts filed a $1bn lawsuit against six giant cigarette companies, including Britain’s BAT.

The state – where more than 10,000 citizens die each year from smoking-related diseases – is trying to recover the costs of treating diseases caused by the habit. The suit makes Massachusetts the fifth US state to take on the tobacco industry. Its action is in addition to a well financed class action representing all smokers addicted to nicotine which is pending in New Orleans.
Massachusetts has joined Mississippi, Minnesota, Florida and West Virginia in taking on the tobacco giants. Maryland has also promised to sue, while the big companies are suing Texas, which is considering an action.The intensification of the acrimony between American government bodies and the industry has underlined the enormous stakes being played for in a business where volumes have grown by a quarter in the past 15 years despite declines in the mature markets of the West.Scott Harshbarger, the state Attorney-General, said: “Today we say: enough is enough. Furthermore, they appear to show that the housing market is reviving. Personal borrowing from the big banks last month also remained close to October’s record.

Yesterday’s figures lend credibility to Mr Clarke’s prediction that consumer spending will lead to a revival in growth in 1996 – and must put a question mark over the speed of future base rate cuts.. Both the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England have referred to rapid money supply growth as a cause for concern and a key inflationary indicator at their past three meetings.And the money and lending figures do seem to demonstrate that there are areas of buoyancy in the economy. It has breached its 3-9 per cent target, introduced in March 1993 when the previous target turned out to be too low. Those who think the economy is in a feeble state and in need of a series of base-rate cuts are inclined to dismiss M4’s misbehaviour as largely irrelevant.That is not a view shared by the authorities, however. It was the slowest-growing alternative the Treasury could find.Judging by yesterday’s figures, M4 is now behaving no better than its predecessors. The current broad measure of the money supply, M4, was devised to halt the embarrassment of missed forecasts in the mid-1980s, when existing monetary targets were spectacularly obeying Goodhart’s law.

He drew up the law with reference to money supply targets in the early monetarist days of Thatcherism. The eponymous Professor Goodhart is now at the LSE but at the time he first made this observation he was with the Bank of England. For better or for worse, Forte will have to stand or fall by Sir Rocco’s record and his promise for the future.Misbehaving M4 causes concernGoodhart’s law states that if the government has a serious target for something, it is bound to miss it. One question for Sir Rocco, therefore, is whether he should further spice up the defence by sacrificing himself – the so-called Captain Oates defence whereby the top man hits the ejector button to save the rest (“I’m going out, I may be some time”). But however sore shareholders still feel about the manner of Sir Rocco’s appointment, we are in truth past the time for tinkering around at the top.