An Arkansas man has been awarded more than $19m (€16.1m) after a jury found that a tobacco company’s defective product contributed to his wife’s death.

Lawyers are taking America’s three biggest tobacco companies to court over claims they used words such as ‘‘light’’ and ‘‘low tar’’ to deceive smokers into believing some cigarettes are safer than others.

A lawyer in a multimillion-dollar case against the US tobacco industry has said that cigarette makers deceive the public to protect profits.