Finnish women sue tobacco firms over lung disease

HELSINKI, March 3 (Reuters) - Three Finnish women with lung disease are claiming 348,000 euros ($527,900) in damages from two tobacco companies in a case that could set a precedent in Europe.

The women, aged 64, 58 and 52, are suing the Nordic unit of British American Tobacco (BAT) (BATS.L) and Finland's Amer (AMEAS.HE), which manufactured cigarettes until 2004 under licence from Altria's (MO.N) Philip Morris.

Both companies deny the charges.

"This is about consumer protection and product responsibility," Erkki Aurejarvi, the plaintiffs' lawyer, told the district court of Helsinki on Monday.

"Tobacco and nicotine are addictive. Despite our efforts, we haven't been able to get Amer or BAT to admit that."

The plaintiffs argue they were not aware of the dangers of smoking when they started in their teenage years, and that the tobacco companies hid and publicly denied that cigarettes cause various diseases, including lung cancer.

Two of the women have had lung cancer and all three have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Their lawyers also argue that tobacco companies have since the 1970s marketed light cigarettes as a healthier option. A European Union directive in 2002 banned the description of cigarettes as "mild" or "light".

"Amer has not in its production or marketing of tobacco broken in any way such a duty, ban or order it should have followed during the time in question," Amer said, according to court documents.

BAT said the manufacture and sale of tobacco had been and is a legal activity in Finland in all relevant times in the case.

Tobacco litigation cases in Europe have not been as successful as in the United States, and the only major case in Britain, the McTear case in May 2005, was won by the tobacco industry.

The widow of Alfred McTear, a man who died from lung cancer, failed in her bid to sue British tobacco company Imperial Tobacco Group Plc (IMT.L).

Aurejarvi, who is representing the Finnish plaintiffs free of charge, said tobacco companies had strived to cause addiction by their nicotine research and manipulation. "It is the science they do in the closed laboratories," he said.

The hearings are expected to last until May with a decision due later in the year.

Cigarette advertising has been banned in Finland since 1976. (Reporting by Sami Torma; Editing by David Cowell)