Its former vice-president of research and development, Jeffrey Wigand, was the whistleblower in an investigation conducted by CBS news program 60 Minutes, an event that was dramatized in the film The Insider (1999).

[3] B&W was founded in Winston (today's Winston-Salem), North Carolina, as a partnership of George T. Brown and his brother-in-law Robert Lynn Williamson, whose father was already operating two chewing tobacco manufacturing facilities.

[8] An April 1995 consent order required that to prevent antitrust violations, Brown & Williamson had 12 months to sell its Reidsville, North Carolina, plant and nine of the brands acquired in the American Tobacco purchase.

In an out-of-court settlement in December 1995, the FTC also required Brown & Williamson to sell the Reidsville plant, but Lorillard did not want it and the company decided to close it.

[13][14] A battle in the war between the tobacco industry and smokers began with Jeffrey Wigand, a biochemist with a career focus on health issues, who became the Vice President of Research & Development at Brown & Williamson in 1989.

Thwarted and frustrated, Wigand turned his attention to improving tobacco additives, some of which were designed for "impact boosting", using chemicals like ammonia to enhance absorption of nicotine in the lungs and affect the brain and central nervous system faster.

Wigand's disagreements with Sandefur reached a breaking point over a flavor enhancer called coumarin, which he believed to be a lung-specific carcinogen that the company continued to use in pipe tobacco.

This argument led Sandefur to fire Wigand in 1993 and to force him to sign an extended confidentiality agreement forbidding him to speak of anything related to his work or the company.

"[17] Brown & Williamson's Kool menthol cigarettes were deliberately marketed to teenagers,[18] as revealed by internal documents,[19] which has led to a lawsuit brought by 28 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

[22] This claim is countered by an on the record interview by Wigand where he points out the local FBI field office was being used by Brown & Williamson via an ex-FBI agent to do dirty work for the company.

Brown & Williamson still tried to sue Wigand for theft, fraud, and breach of contract after the sanitized interview was aired, and launched a 500-page smear campaign against him.

[25] However, his depositions at the Mississippi[26] and Kentucky state courts were leaked, and were published by The Wall Street Journal as part of an investigative rebuttal to the attacks.