Philanthropic legal funds emerged to counter tobacco litigation against poorer states

Evidence

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies came to the aid of poorer countries by establishing a global legal fund that enables them to defend their smoking regulations against costly legal suits by tobacco companies (Tavernise, 2015a). The philanthropists are also creating a network of lawyers who are experts in trade litigation to assist the targeted countries. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1710

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the counter-move — how philanthropic capital built a legal-defense infrastructure to rebalance asymmetric litigation power between global corporations and poor states.