A trial got under way in Montreal yesterday against three leading tobacco companies, seeking $27 billion (€21 billion) from them for allegedly failing to adequately warn smokers of the dangers of cigarettes. Plaintiffs filed two separate class actions that were combined into what is Canada’s biggest-ever civilian lawsuit, against Imperial Tobacco Canada (a BAT subsidiary), JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans Benson & Hedges in the Superior Court of Quebec.