By Tripp Mickle 

The biggest U.S. tobacco companies on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration, challenging an alleged effort to assert authority over labels on tobacco products.

Tobacco subsidiaries of Altria Group Inc., Reynolds-American Inc. and Lorillard Inc. argue a recent FDA requirement violates free speech by requiring them to submit labels for approval.

The FDA in March issued an update regarding new tobacco products and said changing the background color of an existing product from green to red, changing its logo or adding words such as "premium tobacco" would make it a new product requiring agency approval.

The cigarette makers claim the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, which gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco, restricts the FDA from preapproving tobacco labels of Marlboro, Camel and Newport cigarettes. As a result, the manufacturers say they should be able to change the color or look of tobacco packaging as they wish.

The lawsuit doesn't challenge the Surgeon General's Warning labels, which are required by law and warn about the health risks of smoking.

"We disagree that FDA's new requirements that manufacturers must obtain agency authorization before changing certain product labels when the actual physical tobacco product remains exactly the same," said Brian May, an Altria spokesman. "We're asking the court to resolve these issues."

The FDA said it doesn't comment on litigation.

The lawsuit is the latest skirmish between tobacco companies and the FDA over labels. In 2011, Reynolds and Lorillard sued the FDA after the agency introduced rules that would have put graphic images like cancerous lungs on the top half of cigarette packages. The companies won that suit, arguing the labels would violate their free speech rights.

This latest suit also comes as governments around the world look to exert more control over cigarette labels. Last month, the U.K. Parliament voted in favor of a so-called plain-packaging law that would require cigarettes to be sold in uniform packs stripped of the distinctive logos and colors that make them easily identifiable. International tobacco companies like Japan Tobacco International Inc. and Imperial Tobacco Group PLC said they plan to challenge the proposed law in court.

Previously, U.S. tobacco companies only had to submit new tobacco products, like a new brand of cigarettes, and accompanying labels for FDA for approval. But under the March FDA requirement, tobacco companies argue, the FDA now will require them to get approval if they change an existing product's label.

For example, Newport-maker Lorillard submitted a new product and secured FDA approval in 2013 for its Non-Menthol Gold Box cigarettes. But under the new rules, a Lorillard spokesman said, if the company wanted to change the color of the product from gold to white nationally, it would have to submit it for FDA approval.

The companies argue that process has harmed them by "restricting [their] ability to modify their product labels without FDA pre-authorization and by chilling and restricting" free speech.

The tobacco companies say that if the FDA wants to require label approval, it should go through "notice-and-comment rule making" process. Doing so would take months and involve the FDA introducing a rule, the companies commenting on that rule, and the FDA reviewing those comments before completing the regulation.

A similar process for rules regarding e-cigarettes began nearly a year ago and measures still haven't been introduced.

Write to Tripp Mickle at tripp.mickle@wsj.com

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