# Appendix — Philip Morris USA Inc. v. United States > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40386017_1613%3A3 ## Record - **Collection:** Supreme Court brief - **Document type:** Appendix - **Published:** January 1, 2010 - **Citation:** 561 U.S. 1025 ## Text Supreme Court US. FILE Nos. 99-976 FEB 19 2010 IN THE OFFICE OF THE CLERK Supreme Court of the United States PHILIP MorRIS USA INC. (f/k/a Philip Morris, Inc.), Petitioner, Vv. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO COMPANY and BROWN & WILLIAMSON HOLDINGS, INC., Petitioners, Ve UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. LORILLARD TOBACCO COMPANY, Petitioner, se UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (INVESTMENTS) LIMITED, Petitioner, V+ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. ALTRIA GROUP, INC., Petitioner, Vv. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. APPENDIX TO PETITIONS FOR WRITS OF CERTIORARI VOLUME 1 of 5 (Pages 1a-447a) MICHAEL A. CARVIN Counsel of Record ROBERT F. MCDERMOTT, JR. MICHAEL S. FRIED NOEL J. FRANCISCO SHAY DVORETZKY HASHIM M. MOOPPAN JOHN M. GORE JONES Day 51 Louisiana Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 879-3939 macarvin@jonesday.com Counsel for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company MICHAEL B. MINTON Counsel of Record BRUCE D. RYDER JASON A. WHEELER THOMPSON COBURN LLP One US Bank Plaza St. Louis, MO 63101 (314) 552-6000 mminton@thompsoncoburn.com Counsel for Lorillard Tobacco Company GUY MILLER STRUVE Counsel of Record CHARLES S. DUGGAN DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL LLP 450 Lexington Avenue New York, New York 10017 (212) 450-4192 guy.struve@davispolk.com Counsel for Altria Group, Inc. MIGUEL A. ESTRADA Counsel of Record AMIR C. TAYRANI GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP 1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) $55-8500 mestrada@gibsondunn.com Counsel for Philip Morris USA Inc. ALAN UNTEREINER Counsel of Record Roy T. ENGLERT, JR. MARK STANCIL EVA A. TEMKIN ROBBINS, RUSSELL, ENGLERT, ORSECK, UNTEREINER & SAUBER LLP 1801 K Street, N.W. Suite 411 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 775-4500 auntereiner@robbinsrussell.com Counsel for British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd. DOUGLAS G. SMITH, P.C. Counsel of Record RENEE D. SMITH KIRKLAND & ELLIS LLP 300 N. LaSalle Chicago, IL 60654 (312) 862-2000 douglas.smith@kirkland.com Counsel for Brown & Williamson Holdings, Inc. TABLE OF CONTENTS Opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit aii sac oniceaincccmaiasininemnnnediininiaednenannines la Opinion of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Aug. 17, 2006)......... 101a Order of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Denying Rehearing En Banc Se SE necinictectiniinitetvmpanesessmnvenssinieniben 2182a Order of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Denying Panel Rehearing (Sept. 22, 2009) ...2184a la APPENDIX A United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Argued October 14, 2008 Decided May 22, 2009 No. 06-5267 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ET AL.., APPELLEES Vv. PHILIP MORRIS USA INC., FORMERLY KNOWN AS PHILIP MORRIS INCORPORATED, ET AL., APPELLEES BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (INVESTMENTS) LTD., DIRECTLY AND AS SUCCESSOR TO BRITISH-AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY, LTD., APPELLANT THE COUNCIL FOR TOBACCO RESEARCH-USA, INC., ET AL.., APPELLEES Consolidated with 06-5268, et al. Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 99cv-02496) 2a Michael A. Carvin and Miguel A. Estrada argued the causes for appellants. With them on the briefs were David S. Eggert, Guy Miller Struve, Charles S. Duggan, David M. Bernick, Robert F. McDermott, Jr., Peter J. Biersteker, Michael S. Fried, John K. Crisham, Michael B. Minton, Bruce D. Ryder, Bruce G. Sheffler, Alan E. Untereiner, Joseph Kresse, and Deborah Israel. Murray R. Garnick, Timothy M. Broas, James A. Goold, Gene E. Voigts, Clausen Ely Jr., Leonard A. Feiwus, James W. Newbold, Ed- ward C. Schmidt, Arnon D. Siegel, Keith A. Teel, Theodore Y. Wells, Jr., and Dan K. Webb entered ap- pearances. Alan E. Untereiner and Bruce G. Sheffler were on the briefs for appellant British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited. David S. Eggert, Guy Miller Struve, and Charles S. Duggan were on the briefs for appellant Altria Group, Inc. Daniel J. Popeo, Paul D. Kamenar, Andrew G. McBride, and Thomas R. McCarthy were on the brief for amici curiae National Association of Manufactur- ers and the Washington Legal Foundation urging re- versal. Scott A. Sinder was on the brief for amicus curiae National Association of Convenience Stores in sup- port of appellants. Robin S. Conrad, Amar D. Sarwal, Theodore B. Olson, and Matthew D. McGill were on the brief for amicus curiae Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in support of appellants urging re- versal. 3a Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U. S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Michael F. Hertz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Jonathan F. Cohn, Deputy Assis- tant Attorney General, and Alisa B. Klein, Mark R. Freeman, Sarang Vijay Damle, Melissa N. Patterson, and Christopher J. Walker, Attorneys. Howard M. Crystal argued the cause for interve- nors Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, et al. With him on the briefs were Katherine A. Meyer and G. Robert Blakey. Michael D. Hausfeld and Victoria S. Nugent were on the brief for amici curiae American College of Oc- cupational and Environmental Medicine, et al. in support of appellee urging affirmance. William C. Lieblich, Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Alaska, Terry Goddard, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Arizona, Dustin McDaniel, Attorney General, Attorney General, At- torney General’s Office of the State ui Arkansas, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of California, Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Connecticut, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III, Attorney General, Attor- ney General’s Office of the State of Delaware, Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Of- fice of the State of Florida, Mark J. Bennett, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Hawaii, Lawrence Wasden, Attorney General, Attor- ney General’s Office of the State of Idaho, Lisa Madigan, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Of- fice of the State of Dlinois, Paul Morrison, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of 4a Kansas, Greg Stumbo, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Kentucky, Charles Foti, J7., Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Louisiana, G. Steven Rowe, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Maine, Douglas F. Gansiler, Attorney General, Attor- ney General’s Office of the State of Maryland, Mar- tha Coakley, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Mi- chael A. Cox, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Michigan, Lori Swanson, Attor- ney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Minnesota, Jim Hood, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Attorney Gen- eral’s Office of the State of Missouri, Mike McGrath, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Montana, Catherine Cortez Masto, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Nevada, Kelly A. Ayotte, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New Hampshire, Anne Milgram, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New Jersey, Gary King, Attor- ney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New Mexico, Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New York, Marc Dann, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Oregon, and Tom Corbett, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pat- rick C. Lynch, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Rhode Island, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of 5a the State of Tennessee, William H. Sorreil, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Vermont, Robert M. McKenna, Attorney General, At- torney General’s Office of the State of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of West Virginia, Bruce A. Salzburg, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Wyoming, and Vincent F. Fra- zer, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the Territory of the United States Virgin Islands, were on the brief for amici curiae States in support of appellee. Allison M. Zieve and Brian Wolfman were on the brief for amici curiae Public Citizen, Inc., e¢ al. in support of appellee urging affirmance. Christopher N. Banthin and Stephen M. Kohn were on the brief for amici curiae American Medical Association and Others in support of appellee. David C. Vladeck was on the brief for amicus cu- riae Tobacco Control Legal Consortium in support of appellee urging affirmance. Harvey Kurzweil and Alexander M. Kayne were on the brief of amicus curiae the Citizens’ Commis- sion to Protect the Truth in support of appellee and supporting partial reversal. Kerry S. Lane, appearing pro se, was on the brief as amicus curiae. Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, TATEL and BROWN, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM. PER CURIAM: Defendants in this action, cigarette manufacturers and trade organizations, appeal from the district court’s judgment finding them liable for conducting the affairs of their joint enterprise 6a through a pattern of mail and wire fraud in a scheme to deceive American consumers. They also appeal from the district court’s remedial order, which im- poses numerous negative and affirmative duties on Defendants. The government and intervenors cross- appeal from the district court’s denial of additional requested remedies. After considering all of the par- ties’ arguments, we affirm in large part the finding of liability, remanding only for dismissal of the trade organizations. We also largely affirm the remedial order, including the denial of additional remedies, but vacate the order with regard to four discrete is- sues, remanding for further proceedings as directed in this opinion. I. BACKGROUND The United States initiated this civil action un- der the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organiza- tions Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968, in 1999. The government alleged that nine cigarette manufac- turers and two tobacco-related trade organizations violated section 1962(c) and (d) of the Act. Those subsections make it unlawful for “any person em- ployed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or for- eign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity” or to con- spire to do so. 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), (d). The eleven De- fendants were Philip Morris, Inc., now Philip Morris USA, Inc. (“Philip Morris”); R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, now Reynolds American (“Reynolds”); Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, now part of Reynolds (“Brown & Williamson”); Lorillard Tobacco Company (“Lorillard”); The Liggett Group, Inc. (“Liggett”); American Tobacco Company, which merged with Brown & Williamson and is now part of 7a Reynolds (“American”); Philip Morris Companies, now Altria (“Altria”); British American Tobacco (In- vestments) Ltd. (“BATCo”); B.A.T. Industries p.l.c., now part of BATCo (“BAT Industries”); The Council for Tobacco Research—USA, Inc. (“CTR”); and The Tobacco Institute, Inc. (“TT”). The last two entities are trade organizations the cigarette manufacturers created; they do not manufacture or sell tobacco products. The district court dismissed BAT Indus- tries from the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. The government alleged that Defendants vio- lated and continued to viclate RICO by joining to- gether in a decades-long conspiracy to deceive the American public about the health effects and addic- tiveness of smoking cigarettes. Specifically, the gov- ernment alleged that Defendants fraudulently de- nied that smoking causes cancer and emphysema, that secondhand smoke causes iung cancer and en- dangers children’s respiratory and auditory systems, that nicotine is an addictive drug and Defendants manipulated it to sustain addiction, that light and low tar cigarettes are not less harmfu. than full fla- vor cigarettes, and that Defendants intentionally marketed to youth. United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 449 F. Supp. 2d 1, 27 (D.D.C. 2006). In addition, the government alleged that Defendants concealed evidence and destroyed documents to hide the dangers of smoking and protect themselves in litigation. Jd. The government identified 148 racket- eering acts of mail and wire fraud Defendants alleg- edly committed in furtherance of their scheme. Al- though the district court did not allow the govern- ment to prove 650 additional racketeering acts due to their late disclosure, the court did permit the gov- ernment to introduce evidence supporting those acts to prove other RICO elements, such as the continuity 8a and pattern of racketeering activity, the RICO en- terprise and conspiracy, and Defendants’ participa- tion in the enterprise. After years of pretrial proceedings and discovery, the case went to trial in September 2004. The bench trial lasted nine months and included live testimony from 84 witnesses, written testimony from 162 wit- nesses, and almost 14,000 exhibits in evidence. The government presented evidence that the presidents of Philip Morris, Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, and American assembled together in 1953 to strategize a response to growing public concern about the health risks of smoking and jointly re- tained a public relations firm to assist in the en- deavor. Id. at 37. From the beginning they agreed that no cigarette manufacturer would “seek a com- petitive advantage by inferring to its public that its product is less risky than others”; they would make no “claims that special filters or toasting, or expert selection of tobacco, or extra length in the butt, or anything else, makes a given brand less likely to cause you-know-what.” Jd. (quoting public relations firm’s Planning Committee Memorandum). Acting on this agreement, the cigarette manufacturers jointly issued “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,” published as a full-page advertisement in newspa- pers across the country on January 4, 1954. Id. at 39. “The Frank Statement set forth the industry’s ‘open question’ position that it would maintain for more than forty years—that cigarette smoking was not a proven cause of lung cancer; that cigarettes were not injurious to health; and that more research on smok- ing and health issues was needed.” Jd. All of the De- fendant manufacturers eventually joined this collec- tive effort. 9a The government presented evidence from the 1950s and continuing through the following decades demonstrating that the Defendant manufacturers were aware—increasingly so as they conducted more research—that smoking causes disease, including lung cancer. Evidence at trial revealed that at the same time Defendants were disseminating adver- tisements, publications, and public statements deny- ing any adverse health effects of smoking and pro- moting their “open question” strategy of sowing doubt, they internally acknowledged as fact that smoking causes disease and other health hazards. Id. at 146, 164, 168-69. Although the manufacturers conducted th>ir own research and public relations regarding health and other issues, they also relied in part on a series of jointly-created entities. Among these entities were Defendants TI and CTR (formerly the Tobacco Industry Research Committee). The De- fendant manufacturers created TI and CTR, com- posed their membership, staffed their boards of di- rectors with executives from the manufacturers, and maintained frequent communication between high- level manufacturer and joint-entity officials. Jd. at 4344, 63. Evidence at trial showed that TI and CTR conducted the manufacturers’ joint public relations through false and misleading press releases and pub- lications, trained representatives from the manufac- turers regarding their coordinated industry message, conducted some cigarette testing for the manufactur- ers, and funded “special projects” to produce favor- able research results and witnesses specifically for use in litigation and for support of industry public statements. Id. at 66, 82, 86, 87, 91. In addition to the health hazards of smoking, the government presented evidence that Defendants in- timately understood the addictiveness of nicotine 10a and manipulated nicotine delivery in cigarettes to create and sustain addiction. Evidence showed that Defendants undertook extensive research into the physiological impact of nicotine, how it operates within the human body, and how the physical and chemical design parameters of cigarettes influence the delivery of nicotine to smokers. Jd. at 208, 308— 09. As a result of this research, they recognized and internally acknowledged that smoking and nicotine are addictive and they engineered their products around creating and sustaining this addiction. Evi- dence at trial suggested that despite this internal knowledge, for decades Defendants publicly denied and distorted the truth about the addictive nature of their products, suppressed research revealing the addictiveness of nicotine, and denied their efforts to control nicotine levels and delivery. Id. at 209, 309. The government also presented evidence tending to show that Defendants marketed and promoted their low tar brands to smokers—who were con- cerned about the health hazards of smoking or con- sidering quitting—as less harmful than full flavor cigarettes despite either lacking evidence to substan- tiate their claims or knowing them to be false. Jd. at 430. Internal industry documents introduced at trial revealed that by the late 1960s and early 1970s, De- fendants were aware that lower tar cigarettes are unlikely to provide health benefits because they do not actually deliver the low levels of tar and nicotine advertised. Id. at 430-31. Defendants researched and understood the phenomenon whereby smokers of low tar cigarettes, to satisfy their addiction, modify their smoking behavior to compensate for the re- duced nicotine yields by “taking more frequent puffs, inhaling smoke more deeply, holding smoke in their lungs longer, covering cigarette ventilation holes lla with fingers or lips, and/or smoking more cigarettes.” Id. at 431. As a result of this nicotine-driven behav- ior, smokers of low tar cigarettes boost their intake of tar, so that lower tar cigarettes do not result in lower tar intake and therefore do not yield the touted health benefits or serve as a step toward quitting smoking. Jd. Evidence at trial suggested that Defen- dants understood this concept—for some time, better than the public health community or government regulators—while they promoted lower tar cigarettes as “health reassurance” brands. Regarding secondhand smoke, the government presented evidence suggesting that Defendants be- came aware that secondhand smoke poses a health risk to nonsmokers but made misleading public statements and advertisements about secondhand smoke in an attempt to cause the public to doubt the evidence of its harmfulness. Jd. at 692. At trial, in- ternal industry documents revealed that Defendants believed the public perception of secondhand smoke could determine the industry’s survival and that sec- ondhand smoke research by the cigarette manufac- turers was a sensitive issue due to the absence of “objective science” supporting their position and the risk that their own research would lead to unfavor- able results. Jd. at 733. As a result, the manufactur- ers jointly created the Center for Indoor Air Research (“CLAR”) to coordinate and fund their secondhand smoke research with the appearance of independ- ence. Id. at 119, 735. The evidence also showed that they “created, controlled, used, or participated in ” a vast array of foreign or international entities to con- duct their sensitive secondhand smoke research, generate “marketable science” to use for public rela- tions purposes, and coordinate their shared objec- tives and message. Jd. at 119—20, 759. 12a In additicn to these topics, the government also presented evidence to the district court regarding Defendants’ targeted marketing to youth under twenty-one years of age and their denials of such marketing, id. at 561, 672, as well as evidence con- cerning Defendants’ employees and attorneys de- stroying documents relevant to their public and liti- gation positions and suppressing or concealing scien- tific research, id. at 801, 832. During the trial, this court rendered a decision on Defendants’ interlocutory appeal from the denial of summary judgment on the government’s claim for a disgorgement remedy under RICO section 1964(a). We reversed the district court and held that dis- gorgement is not an available remedy in civil RICO cases. United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc. (“Dis- gorgement Opinion”), 396 F.3d 1190 (D.C. Cir. 2005). In response, the district court granted the govern- ment leave to reformulate its proposed remedies. Af- ter the liability phase of the trial, the district court held a fourteen-day remedies trial. At the close of the remedies phase, several organizations moved to in- tervene in the litigation to assert their interests in the proposed remedies. The district court granted the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Asso- ciation, the American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, the National African Ameri- can Tobacco Prevention Network, and the Tobacco- Free Kids Action Fund leave to intervene solely on the subject of remedies. The district court entered final judgment against Defendants on August 17, 2006, finding that they maintained an illegal racketeering enterprise and each Defendant participated in the conduct, man- agement, and operation of the enterprise in violation of section 1962(c), and that they explicitly and im- 13a plicitly agreed to do so, in violation of section 1962(d). Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 851, 901. The court found that Defendants engaged in a scheme to defraud smokers and potential smckers by (1) falsely denying the adverse health effects of smoking, id. at 854; (2) falsely denying that nicotine and smoking are addictive, id. at 856; (3) falsely de- nying that they manipulated cigarette design and composition so as to assure nicotine delivery levels that create and sustain addiction, id. at 858; (4) falsely representing that light and low tar cigarettes deliver less nicotine and tar and therefore present fewer health risks than full flavor cigarettes, id. at 859; (5) falsely denying that they market to youth, id. at 861; (6) falsely denying that secondhand smoke causes disease, id. at 864; and (7) suppressing docu- ments, information, and research to prevent the pub- lic from learning the truth about these subjects and to avoid or limit liability in litigation, id. at 866. The court concluded that the government failed to prove that Defendants deliberately chose not to utilize or market feasibie designs or product features that could produce less hazardous cigarettes. Id. at 384. Before granting injunctive relief against Defen- dants the district court assessed whether they pre- sented a “reasonable likelihood of further violation(s) in the future.” Jd. at 909 (quoting SEC v. Savoy In- dus., Inc., 587 F.2d 1149, 1168 (D.C. Cir. 1978)). The court concluded that Philip Morris, Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, American, Altria, and BATCo were reasonably likely to commit future RICO violations unless enjoined because they con- tinued to make false and misleading statements at the time of trial, their businesses presented continu- ing opportunities to commit RICO violations, and their corporate leadership continued to consist of l4a veteran employees with longstanding ties to the companies. Jd. at 910-13. Defendants argued that no injunction was necessary because their Master Set- tlement Agreement with forty-six states and the Dis- trict of Columbia and their individual settlements with four states already sufficiently restrained them. The district court rejected this argument, concluding that the Master Settlement Agreement did not obvi- ate the need for injunctive relief because Defendants had not fully complied with the agreement, parts of the agreement began expiring in 2006, the states could not vigorously enforce all aspects of the agree- ment, and BATCo and Altria were not subject to the settlement agreement. Jd. at 913— 15. The district court found that three Defendants— CTR, TI, and Liggett—did not present a reasonable likelihood of future RICO violations, therefore the court did not order injunctive remedies against them. CTR and TI, the court found, now exist solely for the limited purpose of winding up their activities and each retains only one adviser to support its litigation defense and handle any remaining administrative matters. Jd. at 915-18. The court found that Liggett withdrew from the RICO conspiracy by admitting that smoking causes cancer and is addictive, by vol- untarily restricting its advertising and including dis- closures on its packages, and by cooperating with the United States and state attorneys general in their claims against other tobacco companies. Jd. at 906— 07, 918-19. The district court concluded that Liggett was not reasonably likely to commit future RICO vio- lations based on this withdrawal, its continued inde- pendence from the other Defendants, and its limited opportunity for future violations by virtue of its dis- count cigarette market and lack of traditional con- sumer advertising. Id. at 918-19. 15a Pursuant to section 1964, the district court im- posed injunctive remedies against the other seven manufacturer Defendants. Specifically, the court or- dered Defendants (1) to refrain from any acts of racketeering relating to the manufacturing, market- ing, promotion, health consequences, or sale of ciga- rettes in the United States; (2) not to participate in the management or control of CTR, TI, or CLAR, and not to reconstitute the form or function of those enti- ties; (3) to refrain from making any material false, misleading, or deceptive representation concerning cigarettes that is disseminated to the United States public; (4) to cease using any express or implied health message or health descriptor for any cigarette brand, such as light or low tar; (5) to make corrective disclosures about addiction, the adverse health ef- fects of smoking and secondhand smoke, their ma- nipulation of cigarette design and composition, and light and low tar cigarettes; (6) to create document depositories providing the government and the public access to all industry documents disclosed in litiga- tion; and (7) to provide their disaggregated market- ing data to the government according to the schedule on which they provide it to the Federal Trade Com- mission. Jd. at 938-45. The court also limited the sale and transfer of Defendants’ brands, product formulas, and businesses to entities that either are subject to the injunctive order or will sell the brand, use the formula, or conduct the business exclusively outside the United States. Id. at 945. The district court denied the remainder of the government’s requested injunctive relief, including its proposed national smoking cessation program, public education and counter-marketing campaign, and youth smoking reduction plan. Jd. at 933-34, 936-37. The court also denied the government's re- 16a quests that it appoint a monitor to investigate and restructure the Defendant companies, id. at 935, and that it order Defendants to make public all “health and safety risk information” about their products in their own files, id. at 929. All Defendants except Liggett appealed, raising numerous challenges to the finding of liability and the remedies imposed. The government and the in- tervenors filed a cross-appeal regarding the remedies that the district court denied. On Defendants’ motion we stayed the remedial injunction pending appeal. We review the district court’s conclusions of law de novo. SEC v. Wash. Inv. Network, 475 F.3d 392, 399 (D.C. Cir. 2007). To the extent it is not based on legal error, we review the district court’s decision to issue aD injunction for abuse of discretion. Jd. We may not set aside the district court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous, giving due regard to the court’s opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility. Jd. (citing FED. R. Civ. P. 52(aX6)). This standard applies even when the district court adopts a party's proposed findings verbatim. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 572 (1985). To establish RICO liability, the government had to prove the necessary elements of RICO itself— including the existence of an enterprise and a pat- tern of racketeering activity, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c)—as well as the elements of the underlying conduct con- stituting the racketeering acts, here, numerous in- stances of mail and wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343. Defendants challenge the district court’s findings regarding both RICO and the under- lying fraud, as well as the remedies the court im- posed. We address Defendants’ challenges to RICO liability in Part II, their general challenges to fraud 17a liability in Part III, their challenges to specific as- pects of the fraudulent scheme and the liability of specific Defendants in Part IV, their challenges to the finding that they are likely to commit future vio- lations and therefore should be enjoined in Part V, and their challenges to particular remedies the court imposed in Part VI. Ii. Challenges to RICO Liability A. RICO Enterprise RICO makes it unlawful for “any person ... as- sociated with any enterprise ... to conduct or par- ticipate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). Thus, in a section 1962(c) suit, the defendants are the “persons” who conduct the “enterprise’s” affairs through racketeer- ing activity. Because RICO defines “person” as in- cluding “any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property,” id. § 1961(3), corporations as well as individuals can be liable if they conduct an enterprise’s affairs through a pat- tern of racketeering activity. In language central to the issue before us, section 1961(4) states: “enterprise” includes any individual, part- nership, corporation, association, or other le- gal entity, and any union or group of indi- viduals associated in fact although not a le- gal entity. Id. § 1961(4). The enterprise as such generally faces no section 1962(c) RICO liability; indeed it may be the innocent vehicle through which unlawful activity is carried out, see Cedric Kushner Promotions, Ltd. v. King, 533 U.S. 158, 164 (2001) (“RICO both protects a legitimate ‘enterprise’ from those who would use unlawful acts to victimize it, and also protects the 18a public from those who would unlawfully use an ‘en- terprise’ (whether legitimate or illegitimate) as a ‘ve- hicle’ through which ‘unlawful . . . activity is commit- ted.” (quoting United States v. Turkette, 4652 U. S. 576, 591 (1981), and Natl Org. for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249, 259 (1994))). When the en- terprise is an association-in-fact, members of the as- sociation may be both part of the “enterprise” and liable as “persons” under RICO if they conduct the enterprise’s affairs through racketeering activity. See, e.g., United States v. Richardson, 167 F.3d 621, 626 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (upholding conviction of defen- dant member of association-in-fact enterprise). Here, defining the RICO enterprise as “a group of business entities and individuals associated-in-fact, including Defendants to this action, their agents and employees, and other organizations and individuals,” the district court held that the Defendant cigarette manufacturers and trade organizations had violated section 1962(c) by participating in the conduct of the enterprise’s affairs through multiple acts of mail and wire fraud. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2c at 851, 867. Defendants challenge the district court’s accep- tance of a RICO enterprise made up of individuals and corporations, arguing that the statute provides an exclusive list of possible enterprises that covers groups of individuals associated in fact, nc nixed groups of individuals and corporations associated in fact. In United States v. Perholtz, 842 F.2d 343 (D.C. Cir. 1988), however, we squarely rejected this precise argument. There, we held that a group of seven indi- viduals and eleven corporations and partnerships as- sociated in fact may constitute a RICO “enterprise.” Id. at 351 n.12, 353. We explained: “[RICO] defines ‘enterprise’ as including the various entities speci- 19a fied; the list of entities is not meant to be exhaus- tive.” Id. at 353. As such, a group of individuals, cor- porations, and partnerships associated in fact can qualify as a RICO “enterprise,” even though section 1961(4) nowhere expressly mentions this type of as- sociation. In so holding, we jomed several other circuits that had reached the same conclusion. Perholiz, 842 F.2d at 358 (citing the Second, Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as Fifth Circuit Unit B). Indeed, both prior to and since Perholiz, every circuit to consider the question has likewise held that corpo- rations may be part of an association-in-fact enter- prise. See United States v. London, 66 F.3d 1227, 1243—44 (1st Cir. 1995) (holding that corporations can be part of an association-in-fact enterprise be- cause section 1961(4)’s list is not exhaustive); United States v. Huber, 603 F.2d 387, 394 (2d Cir. 1979) (same); United States v. Aimone, 715 F.2d 822, 828 (3d Cir. 1983) (same); United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616, 625—26 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982) (same), su- perseded on other grounds by FED. R. EvID. 804(b)(6) (1997); United States v. Masters, 924 F.2d 1362, 1366 (7th Cir. 1991) (same); Atlas Pile Driving Co. v. Di- Con Fin. Co., 886 F.2d 986, 995 n.7 (8th Cir. 1989) (same); see, also Dana Corp. v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield Mut. of N. Ohio, 900 F.2d 882, 887 (6th Cir. 1990) (reaching same outcome and citing Huber, 603 F.2d at 393—94); United States v. Navarro-Ordas, 770 F.2d 959, 969 n.19 (1ith Cir. 1985) (same); United States v. Feldman, 853 F.2d 648, 655-56 (9th Cir. 1988) (reaching same outcome based on different statutory analysis); United States v. Nayar, 300 F.3d 466, 484 (4th Cir. 2002) (upholding without discus- sion RICO convictions involving an association-in- fact enterprise that included corporations). The 20a judges of these circuits are equally unanimous, for not one has dissented from the proposition that an association-in-fact enterprise may include corpora- tions. Defendants argue that Perholtz has no applica- bility where, as here, the defendants are corpora- tions. Because the Perholtz defendants were individ- ual members of the enterprise, not its corporate members, Defendants here claim that Perholtz ap- plies only when individuals, not corporations, are the RICO defendants. As Defendants see, it, Perholtz merely ensures that individuals are unable to escape liability simp!y by including corporations in their en- terprise; Perholiz, they argue, does not mean that the associated-in-fact corporations can themselves incur RICO liability. But nothing in Perholiz is so limited. Quoting the Supreme Court’s statement in United States uv. Turkette that “[t]here is no restriction upon the asso- ciations embraced by the definition [of enterprise] ,” 452 U.S. at 580, Perholtz sets forth its holding in broad terms: “We therefore follow those courts that have held that individuals, corporations, and other entities may constitute an association-in-fact,” 842 F.2d at 353. Nowhere does Perholtz suggest that the rule varies depending on the identity of the defen- dants. Indeed, two of the cases Perholiz relies on in- volved corporate defendants. Id. (citing Thevis, 665 F.2d at 625-26 (upholding RICO convictions for one individual and one corporate defendant), and Bunker Ramo Corp. v. United Bus. Forms, Inc., 713 F.2d 1272, 1285 (7th Cir. 1983) (upholding RICO charges against one individual and one corporation)). Many other decisions have similarly upheld RICO allega- tions involving cerporate defendants who were also members of the association-in-fact enterprise. See, 2la e.g., City of N.Y. v. Smokes-Spirits.com, Inc., 541 F.3d 425, 450—51 (2d Cir. 2008); Odom v. Microsoft Corp., 486 F.3d 541, 553 (9th Cir. 2007); Najjar, 300 F.3d at 484; United States v. Goldin Indus., Inc., 219 F.3d 1271, 1274 (1ith Cir. 2000); Dana Corp., 900 F.2d at 887; Shearin v. E.F. Hutton Group, Inc., 885 F.2d 1162, 1165—66 (3d Cir. 1989), overruled on other grounds by Beck v. Prupis, 529 U. S. 414, 506 (2000); Atlas Pile Driving, 886 F.2d at 995; Ocean Energy II, Inc. v. Alexander & Alexander Inc., 868 F.2d 740, 748—49 (5th Cir. 1989). Moreover, Defendants’ proposed limitation on Perholiz is contrary to the statute’s language. As “persons” under section 1961(3), corporations may be RICO defendants regardless of the kind of enterprise charged. See 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) (“It shall be unlaw- ful for any person ... associated with any enterprise ... to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.” (emphases added)). Defendants cite not a single case lending even a shred of support to the idea that the meaning of “en- terprise” can fluctuate depending on whom the gov- ernment or the plaintiff chooses to name as the de- fendant. Perholtz’s interpretation of section 1961(4) thus applies regardless of whether the RICO defen- dants are individual “persons” er corporate “per- sons.” To hold otherwise would require us to rewrite section 1962(c). In a further attempt to evade Perholiz, Defen- dants argue that even if Perholtz was correct when decided, it has been eroded by the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Cedric Kushner Promotions, Lid. v King, 533 U.S. 158 (2001). Defendants’ argument be- gins with the premise that at the time we decided Perholtz, RICO presented a potential loophole: be- 22a cause the RICO defendant must be distinct from the RICO enterprise, Yellow Bus Lines, Inc. v. Drivers, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local Union 639, 839 F.2d 782, 790 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (“[O]ne entity may not serve as the enterprise and the person associated with it ....”), vacated on other grounds, 492 U. S. 914 (1989), a sole shareholder who used his alter-ego corporation for racketeering might evade RICO li- ability because he wouldn’t be sufficiently distinct from the alter-ego corporation “enterprise.” Defen- dants rely on Perholiz’s suggestion that a definition of “enterprise” that excluded associations-in-fact of corporations would lead to “the bizarre result that only criminals who failed to form corporate shells to aid their illicit schemes could be reached by RICO.” 842 F.2d at 353. According to Defendants, we were motivated in Perholitz by the underlying concern “that a criminal defendant conducting the affairs of an ‘enterprise’ that was his own closely held corpora- tion, would be so closely tied to the enterprise that he would escape RICO liability.” Defs. Br. 37. Given that the Supreme Court has subsequently eliminated this concern—holding in Cedric Kushner that an in- dividual sole shareholder is sufficiently distinct from his alter-ego corporation to sustain RICO liability, 533 U.S. at 160—Defendants assert that Perholiz no longer represents binding authority. We do not read Perholiz as motivated by the con- cerns addressed in Cedric Kushner. In contrast to Cedric Kushner, the enterprise in Perholtz involved multiple individuals and numerous corporations, with no indication that the corporations were either all closely held by the individual defendants or in any other way insufficiently distinct. 842 F.2d at 351 n.12. Indeed, at least some of the Perholiz corporate enterprise members were not closely held. For exam- 23a ple, enterprise member International Business Ser- vices, Inc. (IBS) existed in its own right prior to the scheme and was related to the defendants through employment relationships that would not have de- feated RICO’s distinctness requirement: Perholtz himself was a consultant to IBS, and the other RICO defendant, Franklin Jackson, was an IBS project manager. Id. at 348. Similarly, enterprise member Remote Computer Services Corporation, although formed expressly for the purpose of the scheme, was jointly held in equal shares by three individuals— Perholtz and two other individual members of the enterprise, id. at 350—and thus would have been sufficiently distinct from each of those non-sole shareholders. The enterprise also included two sepa- rate real estate companies both of which apparently existed independently of the scheme and were not otherwise affiliated with the individuals. Jd. at 351 n.12. At least one individual enterprise member, John Gentile, worked for the Postal Service and ap- parently had no formal stake in the corporate enter- prise members. Jd. at 346, 351 n.12. In Perholiz, we held that all these corporations-—not just those closely held or created solely for the scheme—could be part of an association-in-fact enterprise. Indeed, only after so holding did we turn to Perholtz’s en- tirely separate argument that he, as an individual, was insufficiently distinct from the enterprise. Far from basing our holding on this argument, we simply noted that we had “no occasion to consider the sepa- rateness requirement” because Perholtz associated not with himself but with others. Jd. at 353. Given the structure of the Perholtz enterprise and the court’s acknowledgement that distinctness was not at issue, we think Perholtz reflected a differ- ent concern, namely that a group of sophisticated 24a racketeers who would otherwise constitute an asso- ciation-in-fact might evade RICO’s grasp by virtue of their ability to operate through corporations and es- tablish complex networks of companies, kickbacks, and contracts to achieve their elicit ends. Indeed, immediately following its reference to “corporate shells,” Perholtz emphasized Congress’s desire that RICO serve “as a weapon against the sophisticated racketeer as well as (and perhaps more than) the art- less.” Id. Perholtz itself presented just such a situa- tion: the defendants worked through their own com- panies and multiple outside corporations in an iatri- . cate web of shared commissions to game the bidding process for government contracts. The success of the scheme required the participation of companies to serve as contractors and subcontractors. “This rela- tionship of individuals and corporations is precisely what section 1962(c) was designed to attack.” Id. at 364. Moreover, in asserting their Cedric Kushner ar- gument, Defendants fail to explain how Perholtz’s interpretation would even solve the hypothetical problem they posit. According to Defendants, in or- der to preserve RICO liability for a sole shareholder who would be insufficiently distinct from his alter- ego corporation, the Perholtz court held that an “in- dividual and his shell corporation could together ... constitute an association-in-fact enterprise.” Defs. Reply Br. 16. In Defendants’ view, the sole share- holder would then be liable under RICO for conduct- ing the affairs of this association-in-fact enterprise. Yet if an individual is insufficiently distinct from his alter-ego corporation, we seriously doubt he would suddenly be sufficiently distinct from an enterprise consisting of his alter-ego corporation and himself. If 25a Perholiz had been concerned with distinctness, its purported “solution” would make little sense. Further seeking to justify their reliance on Cedric Kushner, Defendants say that the government cites only one post—Cedric Kushner case—United States v. Najjar, 300 F.3d 466 (4th Cir. 2002)—that upheld an association-in-fact enterprise of corpora- tions. The relevance of this is hard to grasp, as other post—Cedric Kushner cases not cited by the govern- ment accept association-in-fact enterprises com- prised of corporations. See Smokes-Spirits.com, 541 F.3d at 450—51 (holding that the plaintiff adequately pleaded an association-in-fact enterprise consisting of two corporations); Odom, 486 F.3d at 553 (holding that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged an association- in-fact enterprise of two corporations); United States v. Cianci, 378 F.3d 71, 83 (1st Cir. 2004) (“It is un- controversial that corporate entities, including mu- nicipal and county ones, can be included within asso- ciation-in-fact RICO enterprises.”); Living Designs, Inc. v. EI. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 431 F.3d 353, 361 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[Tlhere is no question that Du- Pont [corporation] and the law firms together can constitute an ‘associated in fact’ RICO enterprise.”). And as we noted above, no circuit has ever held the opposite. Cedric Kushner thus undermines neither the unanimous judicial view that association-in-fact en- terprises may include corporations nor Perholtz’s binding effect on this case. Defendants’ argument that we should read section 1961(4) as an exhaustive list of possible RICO enterprises is therefore unavail- ing. Not only is it foreclosed by Perholiz, it is unper- suasive on its own terms. As Perholiz and many other circuits explain, the use o. che word “includes” indicates that RICO’s list of “enterprises” is non- 26a exhaustive. Indeed, section 1961 makes the non- exhaustive nature of “includes” clear by alternating between the words “means” and “includes” to intro- duce the section’s various definitions. Specifically, five of section 1961’s ten subsections introduce defi- nitions with the word “means.” For example, section 1961(1) defines “racketeering activity,” explaining that the term “means” any of a list of specific state and federal crimes. Section 1961(2) likewise intro- duces a definitional list with the term “means”: “State’ means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the United States, any political subdivision, or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961(2); see, also id. § 1961(6), (7), (8) (introducing definitions of “unlawful debt,” “racketeering investigator,” and “racketeering investigation” with the term “means’”). Section 1961(4), by contrast, says “enterprise’ in- cludes any individual, partnership, corporation, as- sociation, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” Id. § 1961(4) (emphasis added). By switching between “means” and “includes” in the same definitional provision, Congress signaled its intent to distinguish between exhaustive and non- exhaustive lists. See Helvering v. Morgan’s, Inc., 293 U.S. 121, 126 n.1 (1934) (describing a statute that introduced three definitions with the word “includes” and seven definitions with the word “means” and noting that “[t}he natural distinction would be that where ‘means’ is employed, the term and its defini- tion are to be interchangeable equivalents, and that the verb ‘includes’ imports a general class, some of whose particular instances are those specified in the definition”). 27a That Congress provided an exhaustive list of /e- gai entity enterprises by adding the phrase “or other legal entity” hardly converts the list of non-legal en- tity enterprises into an exhaustive list. Had Con- gress wanted to limit non-legal entity associations to those expressly listed, the most obvious way to do so would have been the way Congress wrote the five clearly exhaustive definitions in the same section: it could have said “enterprise’ means any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, or any union or groxp of individuals associ- ated in fact although not a legal entity.” But Con- gress chose to say “enterprise’ includes” the listed entities. Defendants think that the phrase “or other legal entity” would have been unnecessary if the list were otherwise non-exhaustive. Not so. Adding “or other legal entity” serves to ensure that all legal enti- ties are covered while retaining the possibility that some additional non-legal entities beyond those listed are also covered. Nor does the use of the phrase “including, but not limited to ” to indicate a non-exhaustive list in a dif- ferent section of RICO, section 1964(a), demonstrate that the sole word “includes” in section 1961(4) must introduce an exhaustive list. Section 1964, which es- tablishes civil remedies for RICO violations, lacks section 1961’s juxtaposition of the non-exhaustive term “includes” with the exhaustive term “means”; adding “but not limited to ” helps to emphasize the non-exhaustive nature of section 1964(a)’s list of remedies. Section 1961 needed no such clarification because it employed the contrasting terms “means” and “includes” to distinguish exhaustive from non- exhaustive definitions. Contrary to Defendants’ argument, nothing about this interpretation renders the definition of 28a “enterprise” devoid of meaning. Although encompass- ing non-enumerated enterprises, section 1961(4)’s list defines “enterprise,” in part, by listing the kinds of entities Congress had in mind. Indeed, the Su- preme Court has acknowledged this meaning by re- quiring enterprises to exhibit common purpose, or- ganization, and continuity. Turkette, 452 U.S. at 583; see also Richardson, 167 F.3d at 625. In sum, as Perholiz clearly holds, because RICO’s “list of entities is not meant to be exhaustive,” “indi- viduals, corporations, and other entities may consti- tute an association-in-fact.” 842 F.2d at 353. This binding precedent—confirmed by the statute’s lan- guage, buttressed by the unanimity among our sister circuits, and undiminished by Defendants’ efforts to escape it—requires that we affirm the district court’s holding that the government properly alleged a RICO enterprise of individuals, cigarette manufac- turers, and trade organizations. We also reject Defendants’ additional challenges to the district court’s findings regarding the exis- tence of a RICO enterprise and their participation in its affairs. The district court found—permissibly in our view—that the enterprise had the common pur- pose of obtaining cigarette proceeds by defrauding existing and potential smokers, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 869; possessed the requisite structure both through informal association and through the formation of several formal organizations, id. at 870— 71; functioned as a continuous unit despite personnel changes, id. at 871-72; and constituted a separate entity distinct from each Defendant, id. at 875. De- fendants give us neither any basis for concluding that the district court’s factual findings were clearly erroneous nor any reason to think them legally insuf- ficient. The district court also found—again permis- 29a sibly—that despite competing in some aspects of their business, Defendants jointly committed fraud and so participated in the conduct of not just their own affairs but the enterprise’s as well, id. at 875— 78, and also that they conspired to do so, id. at 903— 05. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s find- ings that an enterprise existed and that Defendants participated in the conduct of its affairs and con- spired to do so. B. Identifying Racketeering Acts Defendants complain that the district court failed to identify the racketeering acts that support the finding of liability. While it is true the district court’s opinion provided no single, discrete list of specific racketeering acts, the comprehensive find- ings— detailing over one-hundred racketeering acts—are sufficient to warrant affirmance. Defen- dants raise numerous challenges to the correctness of the district court’s findings that they committed racketeering acts, which we take up in Parts HI and IV. In this section, however, we are concerned only with the existence of these findings, not their valid- ity. By statutory definition, any violation of the mail or wire fraud statutes can qualify as “racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). To prove a violation of the mail and wire fraud statutes, the government must show (1) a scheme or artifice to defraud and (2) a mailing or wire transmission in furtherance thereof. Id. §§ 1341, 1343. “Where one scheme in- volves several mailings, the law is settled that each mailing constitutes a violation of the statute.” Han- rahan v. United States, 348 F.3d 363, 366 (D.C. Cir. 1965). Where, as here, the mail and wire fraud stat- utes serve as the predicate offenses for a RICO viola- 30a tion, each racketeering act must be a mailing or wire transmission made in furtherance of a “scheme or artifice to defraud.” 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343. Thus, in order to identify the racketeering acts, the district court must first have found a scheme to defraud, then concluded the alleged mailings or wire trans- missions were in furtherance of such scheme. See Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 852-54. Although Defendants question whether the dis- trict court clearly found a scheme to defraud, the finding on this question is explicit: “The Government has proven that the Enterprise knowingly and inten- tionally engaged in a scheme to defraud smokers and potential smokers, for purposes of financial gain, by making false and fraudulent statements, representa- tions, and promises.” Jd. at 852. The district court explains, in great detail, the seven components of the scheme to defraud. Jd. At 852-67. The court also held that “each of the alleged mailings and wire transmissions was in furtherance of the overarching scheme to defraud.” Jd. at 881. Thus it follows that any mailing or wire transmission found to have been made was found to have been a mail or wire fraud offense and therefore a racketeer- ing act. Seventy-nine of the alleged acts were established by Defendants’ own stipulations and admissions. Id. at 882 (enumerating 79 racketeering acts). Alto- gether, the court enumerated 108 racketeering acts in the opinion, as well as six others which it excluded on First Amendment grounds. See id. at 882, 884, 885 n.62, 887. This total does not include the many other findings which may be tied to other racketeer- ing acts, but for which the district court did not pro- vide a specific list. See, e.g., id. at 883 (“[I]t is clear 3la beyond any question that Defendants caused the mailings and wire transmissions underlying the 30 Racketeering Acts involving the news media’s dis- semination of Defendants’ press releases and adver- tisements to their subscribers.”). The RICO statute requires “a pattern of racket- eering activity” on the part of each defendant. 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). “[A]t least two acts of racketeering activity” are necessary to form a pattern. H.J., Inc. v. Nw. Beil Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229, 237 (1989) (quoting 18 U.S.C. §1961(5)). The district court found the requisite pattern committed by each Defendant, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 889-91, and this finding is not erroneous. A brief sampling of the 108 enumerated racketeering acts makes the point: Philip Morris, Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Loril- lard, American, and TI committed racketeering acts 24, 132, and 133 by mailing press releases containing false statements about the addictiveness and health consequences of smoking. Jd. at 194, 282—83. Philip Morris, Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, American, Liggett, and CTR committed racketeering acts 66, 73, and 88 by mailing letters regarding fund- ing of CTR’s “special projects” to create data support- ing their fraudulent claims. Jd. at 101, 882, 972, 976. BATCo and Brown & Williamson committed racket- eering acts 30, 50, 51, 53, and 63 through their mail- ings to each other concerning the enterprise’s posi- tion on the health effects and addictiveness of smok- ing as well as smoker compensation and nicotine. Jd. at 253-54, 301, 882, 965, 969. Altria committed racketeering acts 71, 72, 74, and 75 in its efforts to coordinate Defendants’ public positions and fund CTR research projects to support their fraudulent claims. Jd. at 295, 813, 884, 974. As these examples demonstrate, the district court found each Defendant 32a engaged in a “pattern of racketeering activity,” and that finding is not erroneous. See infra Parts III, IV. The 108 enumerated acts give us ample basis to review the district court’s finding. Although the dis- trict court may have concluded other racketeering acts were proven as well, we need look no further. Defendants correctly argue we must ensure the rem- edy imposed is tailored to “the violation found,” United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34, 105 (D.C. Cir. 2001); the voluminous findings detailing the con- tours of the scheme to defraud are more than suffi- cient to allow this review, see,, e.g., Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 852-67. Given that a mailing or wire transmission need not itself be fraudulent, the remedy needs to be tailored to the scheme to defraud, not the specific use of the mail or wires. For similar reasons, we need not resolve Defen- dants’ challenges to the racketeering acts involving denials of marketing to youth. As the district court imposed no remedies specifically relating to youth marketing, our assessment whether the remedies are tailored to the violation found is unaffected by the associated racketeering acts. The remaining racket- eering acts are fully sufficient to support the district court’s finding of a pattern of racketeering activity as to each Defendant. Because these challenges have no impact on the outcome of this appeal, we decline to address them. The district court set forth findings sufficient to allow our review of its verdict of liability and imposition of sanction. Il. General Challenges to Fraud Liability A. Specific Intent The predicate acts of racketeering in this case were all acts of mail or wire fraud, which require specific intent to defraud. Post v. United States, 407 33a F.2d 319, 329 (D.C. Cir. 1968). Defendants challenge the district court’s conclusion that they acted with specific intent, arguing that the district court applied an impermissible “collective intent” standard and that the government did not present any evidence to support a finding of specific intent under the correct formulation. Corporations may be held liable for specific in- tent offenses based on the “knowledge and intent” of their employees. N.Y. Cent. & Hudson River R.R. Co. v. United States, 212 U.S. 481, 495 (1909); see, United States v. A & P Trucking Co., 358 U.S. 121, 125 (1958). Because a corporation only acts and wills by virtue of its employees, the proscribed corporate intent depends on the wrongful intent of specific em- ployees. See Saba v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 78 F.3d 664, 670 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Thus, to determine whether a corporation made a false or misleading statement with specific intent to defraud, we look to the state of mind of the individual corpo- rate officers and employees who made, ordered, or approved the statement. Southland Sec. Corp. v. IN- Spire Ins. Solutions Inc., 365 F.3d 353, 366 (5th Cir. 2004). A person’s state of mind is rarely susceptible of proof by direct evidence, so specific intent to defraud may be, and most often is, inferred from the totality of the circumstances, including indirect and circum- stantial evidence. United States v. Alston, 609 F.2d 531, 538 (D.C. Cir. 1979); United States v. Reid, 533 F.2d 1255, 1264 (D.C. Cir. 1976). We refer to this in- ference when, in the common law fraud context, we say that the factfinder “is permitted to impute knowledge of the falsity of the statements to the ac- cused, not as a matter of law but as a consequence of inferences reasonably drawn from the facts shown.” 34a United States v. Avant, 275 F.2d 660, 653 (D.C. Cir. 1960). Here, the district court concluded that the chief executive officers and other highly placed officials in the Defendant corporations made or approved state- ments they knew to be false or misleading, evincing their specific intent to defraud consumers. In some instances, the court found by direct evidence that representatives of the Defendant companies “will- fully stat[ed] something which they knew to be un- true.” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 895. For ex- ample, the court found that, in a televised interview in 1971, Philip Morris President Joseph Cullman III denied that cigarettes posed a health hazard to preg- nant women or their infants, “contradict[ing] the in- formation Helmut Wakeham, Philip Morris’s Vice President for Corporate Research and Development, had given him two years earlier.” Id. at 193—94. In the main, however, the district court relied on indi- rect and circumstantial evidence indicating that the senior corporate officials knew that their public statements, and those that they approved for their corporations, were false or misleading. In the majority of instances, the authors of the fraudulent statements alleged as Racket- eering Acts were executives, including high level scientists—CEOs, Vice Presidents, Heads of Research & Development, not entry level employees—at each of the Defendant companies who would reasonably be expected to have knowledge of the company’s internal research, public positions, and long term strategies. Id. at 897. The court reasoned: 35a [I]t is absurd to believe that the highly- ranked representatives and agents of these corporations and entities had no knowledge that their public statements were false and fraudulent. The Findings of Fact are replete with examples of C.E.O.s, Vice-Presidents, and Directors of Research and Development, as well as the Defendants’ lawyers, making statements which were inconsistent with the internal knowledge and practice of the corpo- ration itself. Id. at 853. The district court did not commit legal er- ror by imputing to Defendants’ executives knowledge of the falsity of their statements based on inferences reasonably drawn from the facts shown, and suffi- cient evidence supported these inferences. The government presented decades of evidence that scientists within the Defendant corporations and outside scientists hired by the corporations and their joint entities were continually conducting re- search and reviewing the research of other scientists regarding cigarettes and health, addiction, nicotine and tar manipulation, and secondhand smoke. The evidence at trial demonstrated that the results of this research—essential to the core of Defendants’ operations, including strategic planning, product de- velopment, and advertising—were weil known, ac- knowledged, and accepted throughout the corpora- tions. These results established that cigarette smok- ing causes disease, that nicotine is addictive, that light cigarettes do not present lower health risks than regular cigarettes due to smoker compensation, and that secondhand smoke is hazardous to health. Dr. William Farone, a scientist who worked at Philip Morris for eighteen years and whom the district court found to be “impressive and credible as both a 36a fact and expert witness,” id. at 186, testified about the understanding within Philip Morris on the ques- tion of whether cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer and other diseases: There was widespread acceptance that smok- ing caused disease. I never talked with a sci- entist at Philip Morris who said that smoking doesn’t cause disease. [This was based on the] compelling epidemiology such as that re- counted in the Surgeon’s [sic] General’s re- ports, and our knowledge about the chemi- cals that were created by cigarettes and what was delivered to the smoker, hundreds of times per day on average. Id. at 187 (quoting Farone testimony). When asked whether, in his discussions with Philip Morris execu- tives, any of them challenged the validity of the sci- entific evidence that smoking causes disease, Farone answered, No. Their comments generally focused on how the company could or should respond, not to whether the scientific evidence was valid. Remember, a main reason why they hired me in 1976 was to help develop a less hazardous cigarette. It seemed to me at the time I was hired, and certainly was the case during my entire time there, that hiring me for that job was itself implicit recognition that the cigarettes that were out there being sold were causing disease. Id. (quoting Farone testimony). The Defendant corporations documented the re- sults of the studies regarding disease, nicotine addic- tion, and smoker compensation in numerous memo- randa and reports; the evidence at trial, including 37a internal corporate documents, demonstrated that the executives crafted their corporate priorities and strategies in reeponse to these findings. See, e.g., id. at 165, 180, 218, 219, 232, 240, 258-59, 270, 336, 720. Defendants’ own documents also support the in- ference that Defendants’ executives were aware that their public relations strategy of creating the impres- sion of an “open question” about the link between smoking and disease did not square with their own knowledge about the established link between the two. For example, William Kloepfer, Vice President of Public Relations for the Tobacco Institute, wrote to Earle Clements, President of the Tobacco Institute, admitting that “{o]ur basic position in the cigarette controversy is subject to the charge, and may be sub- ject to a finding, that we are making false or mislead- ing statements to promote the sale of cigarettes.” Jd. at 855. Other documents demonstrate that Defen- dants’ top officials were directly informed of negative research results. For example, in 1977 Philip Morris Assistant General Counsel Alexander Holtzman sent a “warning” to the company’s President, Joseph Cullman, informing him that a research project jointly sponsored by a group of the Defendant com- panies had concluded that exposure to cigarette smoke causes emphysema. Jd. at 183. The government presented similar evidence re- garding the other aspects of Defendants’ scheme, such as addiction and nicotine. A few examples can- not adequately present the volumes of evidence un- derlying the district court’s findings of fact, but the following provide a fair sample: A 1991 Reynolds Re- search and Development report acknowledged that “[wje are basically in the nicotine business.” Jd. at 237. Dr. Farone testified that during his time at Philip Morris there was “widespread acceptance in- 38a ternally throughout the company—among execu- tives, scientists, and marketing people” that nicotine was primarily responsible for addiction to smoking. Id. at 868. Indeed, the district court found that “in- ternal documents and testimony from former com- pany employees affirmed that within their corporate walls, Defendants openly recognized the addictive- ness of cigarettes.” Id. Regarding light cigarettes, in- ternal research reports and memoranda at the De- fendant companies revealed that they understood the phenomena of smoker compensation and studied how to manipulate it in order to make their light brands appealing to addicted smokers while continuing to be able to advertise the brands as low tar. For example, a 1978 BATCo memorandum about that company’s internal research acknowledged that “a majority of habitual smokers compensate for changed delivery” and explained that if smokers “choose [a] lower de- livery brand .. . than their usual brand” they “will in fact increase the amounts of tar and gas phase that they take in, in order to take in the same amount of nicotine.” Id. at 861. Dr. Farone testified that Defen- dants’ superior knowledge of compensation (com- pared to that of scientists outside the industry, in- cluding the government) was closely held within Philip Morris and the tobacco industry and there was an “effort on the part of [his] co-workers at Philip Morris, including [his] supervisors, to restrict any public acknowledgment on the part of Philip Morris of the phenomena of compensation.” Id. As these examples and hundreds more findings in the district court’s opinion demonstrate, the court had before it sufficient evidence from which to con- clude that Defendants’ executives, who directed the activities of the Defendant corporations and their joint entities, knew about the negative health conse- 39a quences of smoking, the addictiveness and manipula- tion of nicotine, the harmfulness of secondhand smoke, and the concept of smoker compensation, which makes light cigarettes no less harmful than regular cigarettes and possibly more. The govern- ment presented evidence indicating that specific high-ranking corporate officials were directly in- formed about these matters, as well as evidence of pervasive knowledge and acceptance of these propo- sitions throughout the Defendant organizations. The overwhelming indirect and circumstantial evidence was sufficient to allow the district court to reasona- bly infer that the high level executives, including “CEOs, Vice Presidents, [and] Heads of Research & Development” for Defendants knew about their re- spective companies’ “internal research, public posi- tions, and long term strategies,” id. at 897, that is, the “internal knowledge and practice” of the com- pany, id. at 853. These executives then made, caused to be made, and approved public statements contrary to this knowledge. See, e.g., id. at 190 (Philip Morris Vice President and General Counsel declaring “[njobody has yet been able to find any ingredient as found in tobacco or smoke that causes human dis- ease”); id. at 166, 201 (28 years after Reynolds scien- tists declared the presence of carcinogenic com- pounds in cigarettes was “now well established,” a Reynolds press release and newspaper advertise- ment declared the connection between smoking and disease “an open controversy”); id. at 772 (TI pub- lished booklet declaring that secondhand smoke had not been shown to be a heaith hazard to nonsmox- ers); id. at 796 (Lorillard general counsel testified at trial that the company’s public position has always been and continues to be that secondhand smoke is not a proven health hazard); id. at 273 (President 40a and CEO of Philip Morris quoted in TIME magazine from deposition testimony claiming that cigarettes are not addictive unless a similar attachment to Gummi Bears is an addiction); id. at 285 (TTs Vice President for Public Affairs on television programs flatly denying that nicotine is addictive, stating the attachment is like being a “news junkie” or “choco- holic”). Specific intent to defraud may be inferred where, as here, there is a pattern of corporate research re- vealing a particular proposition, for example, that smoking is addictive; an ensuing pattern of memo- randa within the corporation acknowledging that smoking is addictive, even though the memoranda may or may not have gone directly to the executive who makes the contrary statement; and the corpo- rate CEO or other official of high corporate status then makes a public statement stating that smoking is not addictive, contrary to the knowledge within the corporation. Based on this sort of evidence and the inferences reasonably drawn from it, a factfinder could permissibly infer that the speaker harbored specific intent to defraud at the time he or she made the false or misleading statement. Moreover, such pervasive knowledge throughout the organizations demonstrates that Defendants’ executives at least acted with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of their statements. As the district court correctly held, such reckless disregard suffices to demonstrate the requisite intent. Jd. at 897. The law then imputes this specific intent to the corporation. Defendants argue that, even if the previous dis- cussion presents a correct statement of the law, it is not the standard that the district court applied here. Rather, Defendants assert that the district court re- lied on an impermissible “collective intent” theory to 4la find specific intent based on public statements con- tradicting the “collective knowledge” of the Defen- dant corporations without finding that any employee harbored specific intent to defraud. Like Defendants and other courts, we are dubious of the legal sound- ness of the “collective intent” theory. Saba, 78 F.3d at 670 n.6 “corporate knowledge of certain facts [can be] accumulated from the knowledge of various indi- viduals, but the proscribed intent (willfulness) de- pend([s] on the wrongful intent of specific employ- ees”); see,, e.g., Southland Sec. Corp., 365 F.3d at 366; Nordstrom, Inc. v. Chubb & Son, Inc., 54 F.3d 1424, 1435 (9th Cir. 1995); United States v. Bank of New Eng., N.A., 821 F.2d 844, 855 (1st Cir. 1987); Woodmont, Inc. v. Daniels, 274 F.2d 132, 137 (10th Cir. 1960); First Equity Corp. v. Standard & Poor's Corp., 690 F. Supp. 256, 260 (S.D.N.Y. 1988). We need not pass on the merits of such a standard here, however, because the district court relied on a per- missible view of specific intent. Although at times the court articulated a “collective intent” standard, see, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 895-97, it also based its holding on a proper view of specific intent, see, id. at 853, 897, and we are satisfied that the court’s conclusions based on the proper standard are sufficient to uphold its judgment. B. Materiality In their next general challenge to fraud lability, Defendants argue that their false and misleading statements about the health effects of smoking can- not, as a legal matter, be fraudulent because their statements were not material. This argument is based on a flawed understanding of the materiality requirement. 42a In order for a faise or misleading statement to qualify as mail or wire fraud, it “must concern a ma- terial or important fact or matter.” United States v. Winstead, 74 F.3d 1313, 1320 (D.C. Cir. 1996). This materiality requirement is met if the matter at issue is “of importance to a reasonable person in making a decision about a particular matter or transaction.” Id. Materiality does not require proof that any spe- cific person (or number of people) purchased ciga- rettes as a result of the false statements. Nor does it require Defendants’ false statements to be the cause, reason, or sufficient condition of any person’s deci- sion to purchase cigarettes. Moreover, no subjective evidence regarding any particular person is required; the test is only whether a reasonable person would consider the matter to be of importance regarding the transaction. The false statemen’s identified by the district court would be important to a reasonable person purchasing cigarettes. For example, statements about the adverse health effects of smoking, see, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 146—208, would be a matter of importance to a reasonable person decid- ing to purchase cigarettes. The fact that Defendants continually denied any link between smoking and cancer, see, e.g., id. at 204, suggests they themselves considered the matter material. So, too, regarding Defendante’ false statements on other topics, includ- ing statements concerning: whether smoking is ad- dictive, id. at 208-308, whether Defendants manipu- lated their cigarettes to control nicotine delivery, id. at 308—84, whether “light” cigarettes were less harm- ful than other cigarettes, id. 430-561, whether sec- ondhand smoke is hazardous to non-smokers, id. at 692-801, and whether Defendants concealed scien- 43a tific research and destroyed documents, id. at 801— 39. Each of these topics is an important considera- tion for a reasonable person because each concerns direct and significant consequences of smoking. When deciding whether to smoke cigarettes, tobacco consumers must resolve initial reservations (or lin- gering qualms) about the potential for cancer, the risk of addiction, or the hazardous effects of second- hand smoke for friends, family, and others who may be exposed. Defendants’ prevarications about each of these issues suggests full awareness of this obvious fact; reasonable purchasers of cigarettes would con- sider these statements important. Defendants further argue that, because the sci- entific community had reached a consensus regard- ing the severely adverse health consequences of smoking, their statements to the contrary would not be believed. See Defs. Br. 98 (arguing that “the public was aware of smoking’s adverse health consequences and thus any inconsistent assertion by defendants could not be material to a reasonable person”). The question, however, is not whether a reasonable per- son would have believed Defendants’ false state- ments, but only whether a reasonable person would have considered the issue “of importance,” and the issues considered by the district court clearly met the materiality threshold. C. First Amendment In their final general challenge to fraud liability, Defendants claim at least a portion of their state- ments qualify as protected activity under the First Amendment. Of course, it is well settled that the First Amendment does not protect fraud. See McIn- tyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 614 U.S. 334, 357 44a (1995) (stating that the government “may, and does, punish fraud directly”). Recognizing this fact, Defen- dants argue their statements were not fraudulent, but those arguments are discussed and rejected elsewhere in this opinion. See supra Part III.A—B; infra Part IV. Defendants next claim protection under the No- err-Pennington doctrine—a doctrine, rooted in the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, that pro- tects “an attempt to persuade the legislature or the executive to take particular action with respect to a law....” E. R.R. Presidents Conference v. Noerr Mo- tor Freight, Inc., 365 U.S. 127, 136 (1961). The pro- tection does not “cover activity that was not genu inely intended to influence government action.” Al- lied Tube & Conduit Corp. v. Indian Head, 486 U.S. 492, 508 n.10 (1998). Defendants’ attempt to invoke Noerr-Pennington as protection fails because the doctrine does not pro- tect deliberately false or misleading statements. “(Nleither the Noerr-Pennington doctrine nor the First Amendment more generally protects petitions predicated on fraud or deliberate misrepresentation.” Edmondson & Gallagher v. Alban Towers Tenants Ass’n, 48 F.3d 1260, 1267 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (describing the holding in Whelan v. Abell, 48 F.3d 1247 (D.C. Cir. 1995)); see, also McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479, 485 (1985) (finding the Petition Clause does not have “special First Amendment status” and that pe- titions are not entitled to “greater constitutional pro- tection” than “other First Amendment expressions”); Whelan, 48 F.3d at 1255 (“However broad the First Amendment right to petition may be, it cannot be stretched to cover petitions based on known false- hoods.”). The district court’s valid findings of fraud in this case take Defendants’ statements out of the No- 45a err-Pennington context because they were clearly and deliberately false. The district court provided countless examples of deliberately false statements by Defendants: “Cigarette smoking causes disease, suffering, and death. Despite internal recognition of this fact, Defendants have publicly denied, distorted, and minimized the hazards of smoking for decades,” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 146; “Defendants have researched and recognized, decades before the scientific community did, that nicotine is an addic- tive drug .... Notwithstanding the understanding and acceptance of each Defendant that smoking and nicotine are addictive, Defendants have publicly de- nied and distorted the truth as to the addictive na- ture of their products for several decades,” id. at 208-09; “Defendants have designed their cigarettes to precisely control nicotine delivery levels and pro- vide doses of nicotine sufficient to create and sustain addiction. At the same time, Defendants have con- cealed much of their nicotine-related research, and have continuously and vigorously denied their efforts to control nicotine levels and delivery,” id. at 309; “Defendants have known for decades that filtered and low tar cigarettes do not offer a meaningful re- duction of risk, and that their marketing which em- phasized reductions in tar and nicotine was false and misleading,” id. at 860; “Despite their internal ac- knowledgment of the hazards of secondhand smoke, Defendants have fraudulently denied that [second- hand smoke] causes disease,” id. at 864. Were these statements false, but not deliberately so, Defendants would have a better argument. But Defendants knew of their falsity at the time and made the statements with the intent to deceive. Thus, we are not dealing with accidental falsehoods, or sincere attempts to persuade; Defendants’ liability 46a rests on deceits perpetrated with knowledge of their falsity. Where statements are deliberately false or misleading, Noerr-Pennington does not apply. See Alban Towers, 48 F.3d at 1267. Indeed, if Defen- dants’ statements had not been made with fraudu- lent intent, there would be no basis for RICO liability in the first place. The district court found six alleged acts protected by Noerr-Pennington and based its holding on the remaining racketeering activity. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 887. All six excluded acts were in- stances of testimony to Congress and, given the wealth of unprotected racketeering acts, we need not reach the question whether the district court cor- rectly excluded these acts. The remaining acts were intended to defraud consumers, so Noerr-Pennington protection does not apply. IV. Specific Challenges to Fraud Liability A. “Light” Cigarettes The first specific fraud finding Defendants chal- lenge relates to their marketing of “light” cigarettes. The district court found: “As their internal docu- ments reveal, Defendants engaged in massive, sus- tained, and highly sophisticated marketing and pro- motional campaigns to portray their light brands as less harmful than regular cigarettes.” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 860. The court concluded “Defen- dants have known for decades that filtered and low tar cigarettes do not offer a meaningful reduction of risk, and that their marketing which emphasized re- ductions in tar and nicotine was false and mislead- ing.” Id. Defendants contend they should be immune from liability because the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has blessed their use of labels such as “light” 47a and “low tar. ” This argument is entirely foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Altria v. Good, 129 S. Ct. 538 (2008), concluding the FTC has never condoned the use of “light” or “low tar ” de- scriptors. Id. at 550. Defendants point to a 1966 in- dustry guidance letter from the FTC stating that “a factual statement of the tar and nicotine content (ex- pressed in milligrams) of the mainstream smoke from a cigarette,” as measured by the Cambridge Fil- ter Method, was permissible under the FTC Act. Id. at 549. The “Commission made clear, however, that the guidance applied only to factual assertions of tar and nicotine yields and did not invite any ‘collateral representations ... made, expressly or by implica- tion, as to reduction or elimination of health haz- ards.” Id. Despite Defendants’ argument to the contrary, “the FTC has in fact never required that cigarette manufacturers disclose tar and nicotine yields, nor has it condoned representations of those yields through the use of ‘light’ or ‘low tar’ descriptors.” Id. at 550. Although the FTC never prevented Defen- dants from using misleading descriptors, “agency nonenforcement of a federal statute is not the same as a policy of approval.” Jd. As the Supreme Court held, “neither the handful of industry guidances and consent orders on which petitioners rely nor the FTC’s inaction with regard to ‘light’ descriptors even arguably justifies the pre-emption” argument ad- vanced by Defendants. Jd. at 551. For the same rea- sons, these actions fail to constitute FTC authoriza- tion of the descriptors that could defeat a finding of specific intent to defraud. It is also worth noting that the district court in this case did not find liability solely based on the use of descriptors such as “light” and “low tar. ” The 48a court found Defendants orchestrated “highly sophis- ticated marketing and promotional campaigns to portray their light brands as less harmful than regu- lar cigarettes.” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 860. In addition to the misleading use of descriptors, the district court found “[Defendants’] public statements are blatantly false” in relation to the marketing of “light” cigarettes. Jd. at 861. The district court went on to find that “[aJs part of the Enterprise’s scheme to defraud smokers, Defendants withheld and sup- pressed their extensive knowledge and understand- ing of nicotine-driven smoker compensation.” Jd. These findings reveal that fraudulent activity sur- rounding “light” cigarettes was not merely limited to the use of misleading descriptors. In addition to the fact that the descriptors were not authorized by the FTC, the district court relied on other fraudulent ac- tivity by Defendants. Independent of their FTC-authorization argu- ment, Defendants also insist terms such as “light cigarettes” are not misleading to the public. They analogize “light” cigarettes to sodas which are “low caffeine” and cookies which are “low fat.” According to Defendants, the public knows that drinking many “low caffeine” sodas can result in higher levels of caf- feine consumption, and eating many “low fat ” cook- ies can result in higher levels of fat consumption. De- fendants thus analogize to “light” cigarettes, main- taining that it is obvious that smoking many “light” cigarettes can result in higher levels of nicotine and tar consumption. But the analogy to “light ciga- rettes” is inapt. Unlike drinking sodas and eating cookies, tae factors behind compensation in “light” cigarettes are largely subconscious: “the smoker will subconsciously adjust his puff volume and frequency, and smoking frequency, so as to obtain and maintain 49a his per hour and per day requirement for nicotine.” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 467 (citing internal tobacco company documents). Not only is smoker compensation subconscious, but factors such as puff volume and frequency are not even tied to the num- ber of “light” cigarettes smoked. The analogy to sodas and cookies fails; the subconscious nature of smoker compensation enabled Defendants to mislead the public about the health effects of “light” cigarettes. Finally, Defendants argue their descriptors were simply verbal representations of numerical ratings authorized by the FTC, and thus were literally true. Even leaving aside the fact that literally true state- ments may nevertheless constitute fraud, this claim founders on the district court’s finding that “there are lights of certain brands with higher tar levels than regulars of other brands from the same com- pany, and there are also lights and regulars of the same brands that have the same FTC tar rating.” Id. at 861. This finding, which Defendants do not at- tempt to show is clearly erroneous, reveals the de- scriptors were not simply representations of numeri- cal ratings and thus were not “literally true.” B. Secondhand Smoke We turn next to Defendants’ claim that the dis- trict court erred in finding that they fraudulently denied the adverse health effects of secondhand smoke. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52 obliges us to uphold the district court’s findings of fact unless they are “clearly erroneous.” FED R. Civ. P. 52(aX6). Under this highly deferential standard, we may dis- turb the district court’s findings only if we are “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” E.g., Boca Investerings P’ship v. United States, 314 F.3d 625, 630 (D.C. Cir. 2003) 50a (quotation marks omitted). This is so even if we “would have decided the case differently,” as “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson, 470 U. S. at 574. Defendants contend that their statements dis- puting the health hazards of secondhand smoke were merely good-faith expressions of opinion. But the dis- trict court found to the contrary—that Defendants’ representations were fraudulent and not in good faith. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 853, 864—65. Under Rule 52, then, the question for us is whether this finding was clearly erroneous. The district court criticized Defendants’ state- ments regarding secondhand smoke as contrary to the scientific consensus. Defendants object, empha- sizing that the district court found no scientific con- sensus emerged until the issuance of the Surgeon General’s 1986 report determining secondhand smoke to be hazardous. Moreover, they point to evi- dence of selected post-1986 scientific opinions casting doubt on the dangers of secondhand smoke, arguing that even then they possessed some basis for disput- ing the consensus. Defendants’ objections are beside the point. The district court based its finding of fraudulent intent not just on the existence of a consensus but also on evidence of Defendants’ own knowledge. Philip Mor- ris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 864-65. Specifically, the dis- trict court found that dating back to the 1970s, De- fendants’ own research and analysis revealed the hazards of secondhand smoke. For example, the dis- trict court found that in 1980 a Philip Morris scien- tist reviewed a paper concluding that secondhand smoke caused “significant damage to airway func- 5la tion” in exposed nonsmokers, and found “little to criticize,” deeming the paper “an excellent piece of work which could be very damaging” to the industry. Id. at 709 (quotation marks omitted). In 1982, a Philip Morris—sponsored research facility concluded that the “side stream” smoke composing the bulk of secondhand smoke is “more irritating and/or toxic” than the “main stream” smoke inhaled by smokers. Id. at 710 (quotation marks omitted). And several TI advertisements and press releases claimed that an independent 1981 study showing “a significant corre- lation between lung cancer and secondhand smoke” suffered from a statistical flaw, id. at 715, yet the district court found that industry consultants told TI, Reynolds, and Brown & Williamson that TI knew at the time not only that the statistical error did not ex- ist, but also that the study was in fact correct. Id. at 717-18. In addition to these and other findings providing relatively direct evidence that Defendants were aware of the health risks of secondhand smoke, the district court found that Defendants concealed their role in making statements regarding secondhand smoke. While it may be true that purveyors of con- sumer products, without fraudulent intent, fre- quently engage in concealed support of positive re- search in their industries, the concealment of iden- tity by Defendants over so long a period on a subject of such intense controversy is at the very least con- sistent with knowledge of the falsity of their state- ments. Although Defendants insist they had no knowl- edge of the misleading character of their public statements, they nowhere challenge the accuracy of these or any of the district court’s other findings sug- gestive of their knowledge. Instead, they argue that 52a such findings reveal only facts that were known to the public and that had not, at the time, given rise to a scientific consensus. Again Defendants miss the point. The question is not whether other individuals knew that Defendants’ claims were false or mislead- ing; the question is whether Defendants did. Regard- less of whether a scientific consensus existed at any point, Defendants may be liable for fraud if they made statements knowing they were false or mis- leading. Based on voluminous evidence, including that summarized above, the district court circum- stantially inferred that Defendants did in fact pos- sess such fraudulent intent. Given these unchal- lenged findings, we have no basis for saying that the district court clearly erred in drawing that conclu- sion. C. Addiction Defendants also claim that the district court clearly erred in finding their representations disput- ing the addictiveness of cigarettes to be intentionally misleading. We analyze the district court’s factual finding as to the misleading character of Defendants’ commercial statements for clear error. E.g., FTC v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 778 F.2d 35, 41— 42 &n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1985). We find none. Defendants claim that their statements regard- ing addiction were not intentionally misleading be- cause the term “addiction” is ambiguous. Pointing to the district court’s findings that the meaning of the term “addiction” in the scientific community changed over time, Defendants insist that their statements merely clung to the earlier, narrower, definitions of the term, and claim that the district court errone- ously converted a semantic dispute into a fraud case. But the district court did not find only that Defen- 53a dants insisted on retaining an earlier definition of addiction. It found that they did so as part of a con- certed effort to misrepresent the difficulty of quitting smoking. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 208-09, 308, 857-59. Defendants fail to demonstrate that this finding was clearly erroneous. To begin with, Defendants never challenge the district court’s findings documenting the impact of nicotine on the body and, more importantly, Defen- dants’ understanding of its effects. Jd. at 209-11, 216-71. As early as 1963, Brown & Williamson’s general counsel wrote a confidential memorandum stating: “We are, then, in the business of selling nico- tine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms.” Jd. at 259 (quotation marks omitted). Further, the district court found that De- fendants were aware that cigarette dependence was stronger than mere habit formation. In 1974, a Philip Morris scientist told the company’s president that it was “simply not an adequate explanation to say that smoking is a habit, or that it is social behav- ior.” Id. at 223 (quotation marks omitted). In 1981, a Philip Morris executive wrote in an article: “Ciga- rettes are not just habit forming—the body builds up a requirement for them.” Jd. at 228 (quotation marks omitted). Although several industry attorneys ex- pressed dismay at the publication of the article, none disagreed with it. Jd. In 1985, Philip Morris’s top management was informed that research showed that “the majority of smokers wished they did not smoke.” Jd. at 229 (quotation marks omitted). These and numerous other findings—a!l unchallenged— support the district court’s conclusion that Defen- dants were aware that nicotine creates a chemical dependency far stronger than a mere habit. 54a The district court found that despite their know!l- edge Defendants made numerous statements trivial- izing and outright denying the dependence cigarettes cause. For example, in 1982 TI issued a press release summarizing testimony that smoking caused an “at- tachment” comparable to that produced by “tennis, jogging, candy, rock music, Coca-cola, members of the opposite sex and hamburgers.” id. at 281 (quota- tion marks omitted). In 1997, Philip Morris’s CEO testified, “If [cigarettes] are behaviorally addictive or habit forming, they are much more like ... Gummi Bears, and I eat Gummi Bears, and I don’t like it when I don’t eat my Gummi Bears, but I’m certainly not addicted to them.” Jd. at 273 (quotation marks omitted). In a 1994 television interview, a TI official claimed that there was “no chemical addiction” to nicotine and stated, “[S]lometimes we use the word ‘addiction’ in very broad terms. We talk about being, you know, news junkies. We talk about being choco- holics. ” Jd. at 285 (quotation marks omitted). A 1988 TI press release declared that “it has been impossible to establish that the feelings persons have upon giv- ing up smoking are anything but that which would be expected when one is frustrated by giving up any desired habit.” Id. at 283 (quotation marks omitted, emphases added). Most directly, the district court found that Defendants had their representatives tes- tify that nicotine “did not cause addiction or depend- ence,” id. at 281 (emphasis added), rendering any supposed ambiguities in the word “addiction” beside the point. The district court concluded that these and other findings reflected a campaign of statements intended to mislead the public into believing that giving up smoking is not markedly more difficult than giving up everyday habits. Although not every statement 55a Defendants made was literally false, even partially true statements can be actionable fraud if intention- ally misleading as to facts. See, e.g., Emery v. Am. Gen. Fin., Inc., 71 F.3d 1343, 1348 (7th Cir. 1995) (“A half truth, or what is usually the same thing a mis- leading omission, is actionable as fraud, including mail fraud if the mails are used to further it, if it is intended to induce a false belief and resulting action to the advantage of the misleader and the disadvan- tage of the misled.”). The district court concluded that Defendants’ statements regarding addiction were misleading in this way, and given the above un- challenged factual findings we are not “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Boca Investerings, 314 F.3d at 630. D. Altria In addition to the challenges to fraud liability raised by all Defendants, two Defendants—Altria and BATCo—make a number of arguments specific to them. We begin with Defendant Altria, the holding company owner of Defendant Philip Morris, which raises several challenges to the district court’s find- ing of liability. As an initial matter, Altria claims that the dis- trict court erred in finding that it used the mails in five of the nine predicate acts it allegedly committed directly. The district court specifically found, based on Defendants’ routine mailing practices, that at least two of those five predicate acts were committed through use of the mails. See Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 884 (Racketeering Acts 69, 80). We need not decide whether thie circumstantial inference amounted to clear error, as the other four predicate acts the district court found Altria committed are themselves sufficient to constitute a pattern of rack- 56a eteering activity. See id. (Racketeering Acts 71-72, 74—75). Altria’s central argument is that mailings sent by lawyers could not possibly be mailings in further- ance of a scheme or artifice to defraud, citing several out-of-circuit cases largely standing for the proposi- tion that ordinary litigation mailings containing false matter typically do not themselves constitute a scheme or artifice to defraud. See United States v. Pendergraft, 297 F.3d 1198, 1209 (11th Cir. 2002); Nolan v. Galaxy Scientific Corp., 269 F. Supp. 2d 635, 643 (E.D. Pa. 2003); Morin v. Trupin, 711 F. Supp. 97, 105-06 (S.D.N.Y. 1989); Paul S. Mullin & Assocs., Inc. v. Bassett, 632 F. Supp. 532, 540 (D. Del. 1986); Spiegel v. Cont] Ill. Natl Bank, 609 F. Supp. 1083, 1088-90 (N.D. Ill. 1985). Whatever the merit of that proposition, it has nothing to do with the question before us. Altria makes a very different claim—that mailings sent in furtherance of a sepa- rately-proven scheme to defraud somehow fall out- side the mail fraud statute’s coverage because they are drafted and physically sent by lawyers who themselves have no fraudulent intent. This claim is without merit. Nothing in the mail fraud statute re- quires a mailing to be fraudulent at all, as long as the mailing is in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme. See 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (specifying that the mailing can be “any matter or thing whatever to be sent or deliv- ered” as long as it is in furtherance of “any scheme cr artifice to defraud”). Moreover, the statute looks to the intent of the individual who caused the mailing, not the individual who drafted or physically mailed it. See United States v. Diggs, 613 F.2d 988, 998 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (“[A] defendant ‘causes’ the use of the mails where he does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course 57a of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended.” (quota- tion marks omitted)). Given that the district court permissibly inferred the corporate Defendants’ intent from the intent of numerous high-level executives, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 897, and given that it found that Defendants “caused” the mailings in or- der to further the scheme to defraud, id. at 881, the fact that attorneys participated in the actual drafting and mailing provides no immunity. Thus, we con- clude that the district court properly found Altria li- able for its direct participation in the conduct of the affairs of the enterprise, leaving it unnecessary for us to consider Altria’s objections to the findings that it participated through its control of Philip Morris. Finally, Altria claims that the district court clearly erred in finding that the company joined a RICO conspiracy. We disagree. The district court’s findings of fact regarding Altria’s actions in further- ance of the goals of the enterprise, both directly and through Philip Morris, see, id. at 907—08, as well as the voluminous findings of concerted action and ex- plicit agreement by Defendants, amply support the circumstantial inference that Altria conspired with the other Defendants to violate RICO. See, e.g., United States v. Mellen, 393 F.3d 175, 191 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (“[A] conspiracy can be inferred from a combi- nation of close relationships or knowing presence and other supporting circumstantial evidence.” (quota- tion marks omitted)). E. BATCo Defendant BATCo claims that the district court erred in imposing liability on the basis of its conduct outside the United States. Noting that the district court found that its “activities and statements took 58a place outside of the United States,” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 873, BATCo claims that it enjoys immunity from RICO liability because the statute has no extraterritorial reach. We need not decide to- day whether RICO has true extraterritorial reach— that is, whether it could reach foreign conduct with no impact on the United States—because the district court found BATCo liable on the theory that its con- duct had substantial domestic effects. Id. Because conduct with substantial domestic effects implicates a state’s legitimate interest in protecting its citizens within its borders, Congress’s regulation of foreign conduct meeting this “effects” test is “not an extrater- ritorial assertion of jurisdiction.” Laker Airways Lid. v. Sabena, Belgian World Airlines, 731 F.2d 909, 923 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Thus, when a statute is applied to conduct meeting the effects test, the presumption against extraterritoriality does not apply. See Enuvitl. Def. Fund, Inc. v. Massey, 986 F.2d 528, 531 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (noting that “the presumption [against ex- traterritoriality] is generally not applied where the failure to extend the scope of the statute to a foreign setting will result in adverse effects within the United States,” citing Laker Airways). BATCo argues that the effects test is inapplica- ble because the United States had no obligation to prove that Defendants’ conduct had any effects whatsoever. Although BATCo attributes this to the fact that 18 U.S.C. § 1964(a) does not require the government to prove that it has been injured, we think it better explained by the fact that the mail and wire fraud statutes punish “the scheme, not its success.” Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349, 371 (2005). That said, BATCo’s point has nothing to do with the case at hand. Here the district court found that BAT'Co’s conduct “had substantial direct 59a effects on the United States.” Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 873. The fact that some other defen- dant might commit some other offense without ef- fects in the United States hardly renders BATCo immune from liability for the domestic effects it did cause. Someone whe fires a rifle from Canada into the United States and wounds his victim can plainly be convicted of attempted murder. See Laker Air- ways, 731 F.2d at 922 (“[Wlhen a malefactor in State A shoots a victim across the border in State B, State B can proscribe the harmful conduct.”). This is so even though in general the government may prove attempted murder without establishing that the at- tempt had any effect whatsoever. Similarly, the fact that effects are not elements of mail and wire fraud offenses or associated RICO violations provides no immunity to those, like BATCo, whose fraud and racketeering has substantial and direct domestic ef- fects Thus, we need decide only whether the district court erred in applying the effects test—which asks whether conduct has a substantial, direct, and fore- seeable effect within the United States, see, Consol. Gold Fields PLC v. Minorco, S.A., 871 F.2d 252, 261— 62 (2d Cir. 1989) (describing substantial effect as di- rect and foreseeable)—to the facts of this case. We see no error. The district court found that as part of the overall scheme to defraud, BATCo conducted sensitive nicotine research for Brown & Williamson abroad and secretly shared the results with Brown & Williamson in the United States. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 298-304. It further found that BATCo, in concert with other Defendants, founded, funded, and actively participated in various international or- ganizations, which Defendants themselves saw as instrumental to their efforts to perpetuate what the 60a district court found to be their fraudulent scheme in the United States. See id. at 119-23. In one example, TI admitted that “the back-wash from events and at- tacks affecting the industry in smaller countries comes back powerfully to the USA, ” id. at 140 (quo- tation marks omitted), and praised INFOTAB, an in- ternational organization of which BATCo was a founding member, id. at 132, for “help[ing] the in- dustry to unite in trying to combat the attacks,” id. at 140 (quotation marks omitted). Notwithstanding BATCo’s demands for a nearly unattainable level of specificity, these unchallenged findings, together with the findings of the tremendous domestic effects of the fraud scheme generally, see, e.g., id. at 209, 307—08, make clear that the district court committed no error in finding that BATCo’s participation had substantial, direct, and foreseeable effects in the United States. Cf. Laker Airways, 731 F.2d at 925— 26 (finding allegations that the anticompetitive elimination of a foreign airline increased domestic air fares adequate to support antitrust action with- out demanding further specificity). VY. Challenges to Likelihood of Future Viola- tions Having found Defendants’ challenges to liability unavailing, we move on to the district court’s deter- mination that they are likely to commit future RICO violations if not enjoined. Ail Defendants challenge this finding on a number of common bases, and four Defendants—Altria, BWH, CTR, and Ti—also bring separate challenges to the court’s findings regarding them. We address each in turn. A. Likelihood of Future Violations Section 1964(a) grants district courts jurisdiction “to prevent and restrain” RICO violations. 18 U.S.C. 6la § 1964(a). Hence, before a district court may order remedies under RICO it must find the defendant ex- hibits a reasonable likelihood of committing future violations of the Act. Disgorgement Opinion, 396 F.3d at 1198. Here, the district court found a reasonable likeli- hood that Defendants would commit future RICO violations. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 908—15. Defendants attack this finding, asserting: (1) the dis- trict court applied an erroneous legal standard, (2) the Master Settlement Agreement (“MSA”) makes future violations unlikely, and (3) Defendants’ busi- ness practices and public positions alone preclude future violations. We conclude the district court ap- plied the correct legal standard and its factual con- clusions were not clearly erroneous. In the mid-1990s, the attorneys general of sev- eral states brought suit against the major tobacco companies for the reimbursement of state costs asso- ciated with smoking. Five Defendants, Philip Morris, Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, and Lig- gett entered into a settlement agreement, the MSA, with forty-six states and the District of Columbia. The MSA prohibited, inter alia, youth marketing, any material misrepresentations regarding the health consequences of tobacco use, agreements be- tween manufacturers to limit either competition or the distribution of information about the health ef- fects associated with smoking, and other specific marketing techniques (e.g., cartoon characters and billboards). The MSA specifically required the disso- lution of CTR, TI, and CLAR. The National Associa- tion of Attorneys General and the individual states’ attorneys general enforce the MSA, which requires informal dispute resolution before any enforcement action commences whenever possible. 62a To obtain equitable remedies, the government must demonstrate a “reasonable likelihood of further violation[s] in the future.” Savoy Indus., Inc., 587 F.2d at 1168 (quotation marks omitted). Considered under the totality of the circumstances, three factors determine whether a reasonable likelihood exists: “whether a defendant’s violation was isolated or part of a pattern, whether the violation was flagrant and deliberate or merely technical in nature, and whether the defendant’s business will present oppor- tunities to violate the law in the future.” SEC uv. First City Fin. Corp., 890 F.2d 1215, 1228 (D.C. Cir. 1989). The district court applied this standard—a standard both sides agree is appropriate. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 909; Defs. Br. 39-40; Gov. Br. 182. Defendants quibble with two aspects of the dis- trict court’s application. First, Defendants assert the district court could not rely on “inferences drawn from past conduct alone” because the MSA “already proscribes future violations” and “imposes a legal barrier to the repetition of such conduct in the fu- ture.” Defs. Br. 40. This is an odd argument, suggest- ing a tort settlement automatically limits the reme- dial options in a RICO suit. Notably, the first two factors of the First City test focus entirely on infer- ences arising from past conduct. 890 F.2d at 1228. And, as the district court correctly found, “[t}he like- lihood of future wrongful acts is frequently estab- lished by inferences drawn from past conduct.” United States v. Philip Morris USA, 316 F. Supp. 2d 6, 10 n.3 (D.D.C. 2004) (quotation marks omitted); see also SEC v. Bilzerian, 29 F.3d 689, 695 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (inferring a likelihood of future violations based on the nature of past conduct); SEC v. Gruen- berg, 989 F.2d 977, 978 (8th Cir. 1993); First City, 890 F.2d at 1228-29. Defendants attempt to bolster 63a their position by claiming the MSA precludes the need for injunctions by fully addressing their prior misconduct. As discussed infra, future violations re- main likely notwithstanding the MSA. Therefore, Defendants’ argument fails. Also, Defendants deftly mischaracterize the dis- trict court’s opinion. Based on a single footnote in the opinion’s section discussing the MSA’s failure to alter Defendants’ conduct and concluding remedies in this case were appropriate, Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 913 n.82, Defendants accuse the trial court of impermissibly “shift[ing] the burden to defendants to prove that RICO violations will not occur in the fu- ture ... under the ‘absolutely clear’ test.” Defs. Br. 42. Contrary to Defendants’ fears, the district court obviously did not intend to announce a new standard or alter the reigning standard via footnote. The First City standard was carefully articulated at the start of the discussion addressing future violations and conscientiously applied. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 908-09, 911-13. The footnote, regarding volun- tary termination of illegal conduct, appears much later in the opinion where the court sought to em- phasize the suspension of disbelief necessary to agree with Defendants, noting the court must assume “De- fendants have complied with and will continue to comply with the terms of the MSA, and that the MSA has adequate enforcement mechanisms” in order to conclude “the MSA obviates the need for injunctive relief.” Id. at 913 (quotation marks omitted). This is a far cry from altering the legal standard. Indeed, the district court found, under the correct standard, that Defendants continued to commit violations even after 1999, well after the execution of the MSA. Id. at 910-11. 64a Since the district court applied the standard enunciated in Savoy and First City and gave appro- priate weight to the inferences drawn from Defen- dants’ past conduct, we uphold the district court’s decision to order remedies. The district court concluded the MSA “alone [could not] remove the reasonable likelihood of De- fendants’ future RICO violations.” Id. Defendants contend the MSA effectively prevents prospective RICO violations because it prohibits them from par- ticipating in an “enterprise” or committing any “predicate acts.” The district court, however, found Defendants began to evade and at times even violate the MSA’s prohibitions almost immediately after signing the agreement and, consequently, concluded the MSA did not limit the court’s ability to order “[a]ppropriate [rlemedies. ” Jd. The court’s factual findings are not clearly erroneous. Defendants assert the MSA prevents their par- ticipation in a RICO enterprise because the organi- zations that allowed for joint activity no longer exist, and neither the government nor the district court identified any “joint activity” between Defendants after 1998, the start of the MSA. Defendants’ post- agreement activities belie these statements. For ex- ample, though the MSA required Defendants to dis- solve CIAR, only two days after signing the MSA Lorillard’s general counsel wrote Philip Morris, Rey- nolds, and Brown & Williamson asking to “discuss the status of the plan to reinstate CIAR. ” Id. at 798 (quotation marks omitted). Shortly thereafter, Cov- ington & Burling LLP informed the CIAR contractors “(t]he members of CIAR have decided to create a new organization to continue the work . .. . The members of CLAR that will be members of the new organiza- tion intend to continue to fund the research.” Gov. 65a Ex. 75,412, at 2. Subsequently, in 2000, Philip Mor- ris initiated a new research program that had the same offices, phone numbers, and board as CIAR and many of the same employees, management, re- searchers, peer reviewers, and grantees. Philip Mor- ris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 798-99. CIAR is not the lone example of Defendants’ or- ganizations poised to circumvent the MSA’s prohibi- tions against joint activities or participation in an enterprise. The district court found, with the excep- tion of CTR and TI, “all of the other organizations either still exist or can be readily re-activated.” Id. at 871. For example, even at the time of trial Defen- dants continued to participate in the Center for Co- operation in Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco (“CORESTA”), “a non-profit making association with objectives to enhance the scientific cooperation for research on tobacco” perceived as “unique and very valuable” because it enjoys the perception of “being objective, technical and independent.” Gov. Ex. 21,788, at 1. Defendants presume the MSA’s prohibition against joint activity is effective. The record, how- ever, demonstrates the tobacco companies retain both the ability and the desire to continue joint ac- tivities. Accordingly, the district court did not com- mit clear error when it determined the MSA could not effectively prevent Defendants’ participation in an enterprise. Defendants next assert the MSA’s “scores of in- junctions and related prohibitions” prevent “repeti- tion of the core wrongdoing.” Defs. Br. 48. The dis- trict court determined the MSA does not prevent De- fendants’ commission of future racketeering acts be- cause: (1) Defendants have not fully complied with 66a the MSA, (2) the States could not be relied upon “to vigorously enferce the MSA, ” see Br. For Amici Cu- riae States 7-11, (3) some provisions of the MSA have and will expire, and (4) BATCo and Altria are not subject to the agreement. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 913-15. As evidence of the MSA’s failures and pitfalls, the district court noted that despite the MSA Defen- dants still fraudulently denied the dangers of sec- ondhand smoke, marketed “low tar” cigarettes as a healthier alternative to quitting, and falsely denied manipulating nicotine delivery and marketing to youth. Jd. at 910. Defendants offer no rebuttal to these factual findings, but instead argue “failure to comply with all the details or the ‘spirit’ of the MSA does not even begin to approach a RICO violation.” Defs. Br. 50. Obviously. But as the district court rightly recognized, Defendants cannot hide behind the MSA to avoid the imposition of RICO remedies when they do not comply with the agreement. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 913. Therefore, the dis- trict court did not commit clear error when it deter- mined the MSA does not adequately prevent or re- strain Defendants’ future racketeering activities and did not abuse its discretion by ordering equitable re- lief. Defendants claim they have “admitted for years” that “smoking causes lung cancer” and other serious diseases, “smoking is addictive,” and “low tar ciga- rettes may not be safer.” Defs. Br. 53—54, 56. They insist their positions on these issues “preclude future RICO violations.” Jd. at 53. The district court ac- knowledged Defendants’ varying degrees of lip ser- vice to these facts, but disagreed that these admis- sions translated into a guarantee against later viola- tions. 67a According to the district court, “Defendants’ es- sential position on the relationship of smoking and health remains virtually unchanged” from the fraudulent positions it first took in the 1950s. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 204; see also id. at 204—08 (citing corporate statements and statements from Defendants’ executives). The district court con- demned Defendants for failing to embrace the Sur- geon General’s definition of addiction, to admit nico- tine specifically creates and sustains addiction, or to “acknowledge([] ... the reason quitting smoking is so difficult, and not simply a function of individual will power, is because of its addictive nature.” Id. at 286; see also id. at 284—88. Finally, [Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.] --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40386017_1613%3A3. Public record. Not legal advice.