Background and challenges to implementation:
Brazil is the highest-performing countries in its efforts to develop 
policies and programs to implement FCTC.
The tobacco industry (TI) continues to hamper Brazil's efforts to fully implement FCTC, interfering in the adoption of such measures, or preventing implementation when they are adopted, challenging in national courts. 

ANVISA is the regulatory agency responsible for regulating tobacco in Brazil. Two different legislations enacted by the agency (ban of additives and health warnings) are being challenged in Courts. This challenge is delaying the fully protection of Brazilian population from the harms caused by tobacco.

Intervention or response:
A coalition of tobacco control partners was created, representing government health agencies, academia and health NGOs, in order to fight in this battle. Coalition members had regular meetings with the Supreme Court to urge the release of the injunction that stopped the effects of additive ban. Members of the civil society filed two amicus brief in support of ANVISA. Mobilization of legislators and public health institutions to contact the Supreme Court through letters of support was done. A dissemination of tobacco control guidelines for the Judiciary Power informing about FCTC was another strategy adopted. Technical assistance for the formal response was sent to federal prosecutors and scientific evidence to support the legislation was provided.

Results and lessons learnt:
A major success of this group of initiatives was the scheduling of the hearing on the additives ban for August 17, 2018, since the lawsuit started in 2013 and the TI access to the Court had kept it off the hearing agenda. This work will provide a discussion and an analysis of the TI arguments and the counter arguments used to defend the public health laws.

Conclusions and key recommendations:
It is important to create a coalition to defend against the TI use of legal strategies to prevent the implementation of the tobacco control.