[4] With tobacco being addictive and a leading cause of preventable death globally,[5] the company has faced litigation and regulatory measures from governments and has been the subject of scrutiny by the World Health Organization.

[8] The company states its history is traced to a tobacconist, Philip Morris, opening a single shop on London's Bond Street in 1847 which sold tobacco and cigarettes.

"[18] As of 2019, main institutional investors are The Vanguard Group with an 8% stake, Capital Research & Management with 5% and BlackRock Fund Advisors with 4%.

[22] In November 2021, Philip Morris International announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters from New York to Stamford, Connecticut, which expected to take effect in Summer 2022, while its operational center remained in Lausanne.

[27] Philip Morris International has six multibillion US$ brands including: As of 2024, Philip Morris International owns 9 companies, which develop medical products in connection with diseases caused by tobacco:[31] Softhale (inhalers), Biovotion (developer of a wearable sensing technology for medical-quality vital sign monitoring in daily life), Fertin Pharma (pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals), Swedish Match (snus and nicotine free snus), OtiTopic (Drug development focusing on acute myocardial infarction), Biognosys (services and products for highly multiplexed protein quantification), Syqe Medical (inhaler for medical cannabis) and Vectura Group (inhalers), Biofourmis (develops a health analytics platform to analyze physiology data from clinical-grade wearables).

[40] In September 2017, Philip Morris International announced the establishment of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, stating that it would support it with almost US$1 billion of funding over the next 12 years.

[43][47] Stanford University School of Medicine's extensive research has also exposed PMI's claims to move away from cigarettes and become 'smoke-free' as propaganda.

In June 2011, Philip Morris International announced that it was using ISDS provisions in the Australia-Hong Kong Bilateral Investment treaty (BIT) to demand compensation for Australia's plain cigarette packaging anti-smoking legislation.

On 15 August 2012, the High Court handed down orders for these matters, and found that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 is not contrary to s 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

[51] In 2017, the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization supported Australia's right to enforce plain packaging.

Tammy Chan, the managing director in Australia, said more efficient ways to deal with retailers were introduced based on digital technology development.

[60] In August 2014, the company foreshadowed legal action against the Government of the United Kingdom if it went ahead with plans to introduce plain packaging.

In a submission to the government, Philip Morris International said it would seek compensation running into "billions of pounds," if the proposed legislation went ahead.

[62] In 2017, according to two editors of the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, after publication of a research letter describing harmful chemicals in heat-not-burn tobacco products, people from Philip Morris International contacted the institutions where the researchers worked and questioned the methods used in the study; the editors described this as a form of "pressure to suppress discourse that could harm commercial interests".

[63] In December 2017, Reuters published documents and testimonies of former employees detailing irregularities in the clinical trials conducted by Philip Morris International for the approval of the IQOS product by the FDA.

[65] According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a Philip Morris representative in Burkina Faso, Apollinaire Compaoré, has earned millions by participating in cigarette smuggling in West Africa.

This tobacco trafficking contributes to the financing of local conflicts and passes through six countries: Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire.

[67] A 1985 report from Philip Morris squarely blamed the World Health Organization: “This ideological development has become a threat to our business because of the interference of the WHO [...] The WHO has not only joined forces with Muslim fundamentalists who view smoking as evil, but has gone yet further by encouraging religious leaders previously not active anti-smokers to take up the cause.

[67] Philip Morris International has announced an overhaul of its human rights protections of tobacco workers in Kazakhstan and 30 other countries after critical reports.

[70] In February 2015, John Oliver highlighted the company's many international legal cases on an episode of his television show Last Week Tonight.

Marlboro-branded Ferrari and McLaren cars won several world titles with famous drivers such as Alain Prost, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.

The Ferrari Formula One deal before direct advertisements were banned was estimated to be worth £45 million a year as well as paying the multi-million salary of Schumacher.

[78] Philip Morris's sponsorship of Ferrari was seen visually on the car again at the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix, with the cigarette company's "Mission Winnow" branding.

In 2003, Marlboro has been a title sponsor of the team despite the company logo does not appear or riders motorcycle due to the tobacco advertising ban in European Union countries that were already in effect at that time.