Tag: Juul

Juul Labs to Pay $462 Million to Six US States

Image: lyudmilka_n | Adobe Stock

Juul Labs has agreed to pay $462 million to settle claims by six U.S. states, including New York and California, that it unlawfully marketed its products to minors.
With the deal, Juul has now settled with 45 states for more than $1 billion. The company did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which also included Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico as well as the District of Columbia.
Juul announced on Dec. 6 it has secured an investment to cover the cost of the settlement. The company has been in talks with two early investors to fund a bailout that would cover legal liabilities.
The states had accused Juul of falsely marketing its e-cigarettes as less addictive than cigarettes and targeted minors with glamorous advertising campaigns, according to Reuters.
“Juul’s lies led to a nationwide public health crisis and put addictive products in the hands of minors who thought they were doing something harmless,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said at a news conference.
The company said that use of its products by people under age 18 had fallen by 95 percent since the fall of 2019, when it changed its marketing practices as part of a “company-wide reset.”
In September, Juul Labs agreed to pay nearly $440 million to settle a two-year investigation by 33 U.S. states into the marketing of its vaping products.
Juul’s e-cigarettes were briefly banned in the U.S. in late June after the Food and Drug Administration concluded that the company had failed to show that the sale of its products would be appropriate for public health. But following an appeal, the health regulator put the ban on hold and agreed to an additional review of Juul’s marketing application.
In October, Juul published the details of its MDO appeal. In late September, Juul shareholder Altria Group exercised the option to be released from its noncompete deal with the e-cigarette maker.
Last month, Altria Group exchanged its entire investment in Juul Labs for a nonexclusive, irrevocable global license to certain of Juul’s heated-tobacco intellectual property.

April 13, 2023
Vuse Market Share Grows While Juul Drops

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive

R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. has continued to expand Vuse’s market share gap with Juul, according to the latest Nielsen convenience store report.
Vuse’s market share rose from 41.5 percent in the previous report to 42.2 percent compared with Juul declining to 26.1 percent.
The latest Nielsen analysis covers the four-week period ending March 25, according to media reports.
According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes don’t appear immediately in Nielsen.
Consumer demand for tobacco products has ebbed and flowed over the past 12 months, mostly from the impact of inflation and recent upticks in traditional cigarette prices.
No. 3 Njoy was unchanged at 2.7 percent while Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs were unchanged at 1.4 percent.
On March 6, Altria Group Inc. delivered another shake-up to the tobacco industry by confirming it would pay $2.75 billion in cash to take full ownership of Njoy.
Altria cleared the way for the Njoy purchase by exiting its minority stake in No. 2 e-cigarette company Juul while acquiring global licensing rights.
Juul’s four-week dollar sales in the latest report have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 23.9 percent decline in the latest report.
By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 31.1 percent in the latest report while Njoy was down 10.9 percent, blu eCigs were down 37.4 percent and Japan Tobacco’s Logic was up 5.2 percent.
As recently as May 2019, Juul held a 74.6 percent U.S. e-cigarette market share.

April 6, 2023
First Trial for Juul Youth Marketing Claims

Credit: Mehaniq41

A trial against Juul Labs and Altria for youth marketing begins today in Minnesota, USA. It is the first state to go to trial against the e-cigarette manufacturer and tobacco company.

Jury selection in the trial comes more than three years after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison first filed a lawsuit against Juul Labs, reports CARE11.

“We will prove how Juul and Altria deceived and hooked a generation of Minnesota youth on their products, causing both great harm to the public and great expense to the state to remediate that harm,” said Ellison in a press release.

Minnesota is the first case to go to trial against Juul since more than a dozen states sued the company beginning in 2019.

“It’s a pretty significant case,” said David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “The case comes down to two or three basic issues. First, it’s about the claim that Juul marketed to minors. Second, it did nothing in terms of trying to prevent minors from accessing their product. And third, it was about the fact that they did not make appropriate disclosures regarding the health and safety risks surrounding the use of vaping and some of these smokeless tobaccos.”

The state believes Juul Labs, enabled by Altria, “engaged in consumer fraud, negligence and created a public nuisance.”

Altria Group exchanged its entire investment in Juul Labs for a nonexclusive, irrevocable global license to certain of Juul’s heated-tobacco intellectual property in early March.

This isn’t new territory for the state. Minnesota was the first state in the country to successfully sue the tobacco industry and win in the 1990s.

Earlier this year, a U.S. district judge handed Juul Labs preliminary court approval of a $255 million settlement resolving claims by consumers that it deceptively marketed e-cigarettes, as the company seeks to resolve thousands of lawsuits.

The company reached a nearly $24 million settlement with the city of Chicago in mid-March.

Juul and Altria have denied the allegations.

In court documents from November 2022, the defendants stated, “Minnesota has reaped billions of dollars from tobacco settlements and taxes over the last decade for the purpose of preventing tobacco use and remedying its harms. Yet even after determining that there was an alleged youth vaping problem among Minnesota youth, time and again the state chose to ignore recommended tobacco prevention funding guidelines and instead used these funds to bankroll unrelated projects—like the Minnesota Vikings football stadium.”

March 27, 2023
Altria Seeks Juul Settlement Details

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive

Altria Group has requested that a federal judge order Juul Labs to turn over details of its settlement with about 10,000 plaintiffs seeking to hold Juul Labs responsible for a youth vaping “epidemic,” reports Reuters.
Altria stated that the settlement was “shrouded in secrecy” and that Juul refused to share the information with Altria, which in 2018 took a 35 percent stake in the company.
Altria was not part of the settlement and remains a defendant in mass tort litigation consolidated before U.S. District Judge William Orrick. Plaintiffs allege Altria took part in shaping Juul’s strategy to market e-cigarettes to minors.
Altria stated that it needs to see the details of the settlement and the negotiations leading up to it in order to evaluate its potential remaining liability and explore potential claims against third parties. Juul’s refusal to share the information “goes far beyond the protections needed to address those concerns, lack[s] any legal basis and would severely prejudice” Altria.
In a separate motion, Altria requested that Orrick put a hold on a class action suit seeking refunds on behalf of all Juul purchasers nationwide while Altria appeals the order certifying the class. The company said that it would be heavily burdened by continued discovery related to the suit.

January 6, 2023