Big Tobacco's Lobbying on the TTIP

This is from the Independent:

The European Commission has been accused of a cover-up after refusing to release details of talks between its officials and the tobacco industry during negotiations over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty.

Corporate lobbying campaigners published documents that revealed the EU’s executive body had met and corresponded with lobbyists from British American Tobacco and Philip Morris.

But the documents, as released, revealed little else.

Almost all the content, including the names of officials and tobacco lobbyists involved, the issues discussed and even the dates some meetings took place, had been redacted.

The documents relate to ongoing talks between the EU and the United States over the proposed TTIP free trade deal, as well as separate talks between the EU and Japan.

Critics of the trade talks, which centre on reducing the regulatory barriers to international trade for big business, said the documents back up fears that TTIP will allow tobacco giants to take legal action against the UK and other European governments who attempt to tighten smoking legislation.

So-called “Big Tobacco” firms have already used similar legislation to sue countries around the world: Philip Morris used a comparable trade treaty to take legal action against Australia over mandatory plain cigarette packaging and is also suing Uruguay in a $25m lawsuit over its attempts to enlarge health warnings on cigarette packets.

The heavily redacted documents were released by Catherine Day, Secretary-General of the European Commission, in reply to a freedom of information transparency request by the research and campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

They include a 14-page letter from British American Tobacco, written on 15 May last year from the company’s London office, which sets out its “serious concerns with the consistency of [redacted]”.

The remaining 13 pages are blacked-out entirely with the exception of some perfunctory closing remarks. A previous letter from Commission officials to the tobacco company is also almost entirely redacted with the exception of a reference to “allegations” made by BAT, presumably over the trade talks.

In another document - a one-page summary of a meeting between Commission officials and the US cigarette firm Philip Morris - even the date of the meeting is removed.

I understand that some people are concerned that the big, powerful tobacco companies are using their influence to push the Commission around on ISDS, and that these letters would have provided evidence in this regard.

However, is it also possible that the letters would show that these companies are upset about their lack of influence on ISDS, and expressing the view that the Commission is undermining ISDS through its recently proposed reforms?