WASHINGTON — Tobacco industry lawyers met secretly with Solicitor General Elena Kagan to avoid the government's attempt to extract billions from companies that illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking, The Associated Press has learned.

Four cigarette makers that control nearly 90 percent of U.S. retail cigarette sales have until Feb. 19 to persuade the government not to go to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to step into a 10-year-old racketeering lawsuit.

In 2006, a judge ruled that the industry concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. Despite that finding, lower courts have said the government is not entitled to collect $280 billion in past profits or $14 billion for a national campaign to curb smoking.

As part of any effort to convince the government that it should skip a trip to the Supreme Court, the tobacco companies may have to drop plans to ask the court to overturn the ruling that the industry engaged in racketeering.

On behalf of the industry, Washington lawyers Michael Carvin and Miguel Estrada made their pitch against seeking Supreme Court review in a mid-December meeting at the Justice Department with Kagan, according to two attorneys outside the government.

In the meeting, Carvin and Estrada left the impression the industry might be willing to end plans to see a high court appeal of its own, if the Justice Department would do the same.

The discussion with Estrada and Carvin resulted in an internal department meeting. At this meeting, department lawyers discussed the possibility of seeking billions of dollars from the industry as part of a possible negotiated settlement of the suit.