• March 28, 2024

BAT to close documents depository

British American Tobacco said on Friday that it intends to close its Guildford Depository, a publicly accessible depository that was established in 1999 as part of a settlement in a US lawsuit entitled State of Minnesota v. Philip Morris, et al.

BAT, which was released from the requirement to maintain the depository in 2011, says that it will be closed on October 31.

“British American Tobacco has not been legally obliged to keep the Guildford Depository open for several years and it is a facility that is expensive to maintain,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying in a note posted on its website.

“The vast majority of documents in the Guildford Depository are available online via third party websites and we haven’t received any visitors to the site in over three years.

“That said, we hope that by providing three months’ notice, anyone interested in visiting the site will have the opportunity to do so before it closes.”

BAT said that all of the Guildford Depository documents would be moved to a long-term storage facility and retained.