Tag: RELX Technology

RELX Trains UAE Customs Officials on Illicit Trade

Photo: F8 \ Suport Ukraine
RELX International and SABA IP recently trained officials from the Abu Dhabi Customs Authority and Department of Economic Development to help them combat the illegal trade in vapor products.
The session covered topics such as distinguishing legal products from illegal ones, raising awareness about the consequences of the illegal e-cigarette trade and sharing research and intelligence. The program also discussed product authentication, tracking and tracing technologies.
According to RELX, contraband and counterfeit e-cigarettes are produced in unregulated facilities and pose a serious health risk to legal age consumers and minors. Counterfeit e-cigarettes often use inferior e-liquid formulas; capsules frequently leak and provide misleading information about the nicotine dosage in the capsules.
“The training sessions for the Abu Dhabi Customs Authority, Department of Economic Development and Ras Al Khaimah Customs Authority showcase RELX International’s commitment, as a responsible company, to working with local authorities, investigation firms and e-commerce platforms to identify and remove contraband and counterfeit e-cigarette products from the market, as part of the RELX Pledge,” said Robert Naouss, external affairs director, MENA and Europe at RELX International, in a statement.
In 2019, RELX International established the Golden Shield Program to prevent the production and sale of illicit goods. Since its inauguration, the program has helped remove more than 550,000 fake products from the market, plus over 77,000 websites.
Additional training sessions are planned in countries across the Middle East, including in Egypt and Jordan. Earlier this year, RELX concluded a training session with customs officials in Saudi Arabia.
July 7, 2022
NY May Verify Legal Age With Facial Recognition

Photo: zapp2photo
The New York State Senate is moving forward with proposed legislation that would allow bars and restaurants to use facial recognition or fingerprint scanners to verify customers’ ages before allowing them to buy alcohol, tobacco or electronic cigarettes, according to the New York Post.
“This is the new frontier of age verification,” said state Senator James Skoufis, who is sponsoring the biometrics bill. “It does advance the interests of convenience.”
Skoufis envisions that bars and restaurants could scan fingerprints, faces or retinas of customers who want to be spared the trouble of showing an ID when they return to an establishment in the future. The proposed legislation requires all data to be encrypted and prohibits businesses from selling biometric data to third parties.
“No one’s forced into engaging with this technology, but they would have the choice,” Skoufis said. “There’s no Big Brother involved.”
Age verification based on facial recognition technology is widespread in China, but has yet to catch on in Western countries, where critics have voiced concerns about consumer privacy.
April 25, 2022
Media Report Triggers Sell-off of Vapor Stocks

Photo: Cozyta
E-cigarette stocks fell on Aug. 5 after Chinese state media ran reports about the risks of vaping, reports Reuters.
Huabao International Holdings tumbled 8 percent in Hong Kong morning trade while China Boton Group Co. fell 4 percent. Market leader Relx Technology closed almost 5 percent lower in New York after the Xinhua news agency published a report saying that minors were gaining easy access to e-cigarettes.
Xinhua said its reporters made unannounced visits to e-cigarette shops in the northern cities of Tianjin and Shenyang and found that while all had signs stating sales to minors were prohibited, enforcement of the law varied in practice.
The sell-off demonstrated how investors remain on edge and on the hunt for clues about which companies might be vulnerable to state intervention after the property, education and technology sectors were hit by Beijing regulators in recent months with unprecedented sweeping rules.
Similar market sentiment took hold of liquor-related stocks after the Ministry of Science and Technology posted an article citing a study that linked alcohol consumption to cancer.
Investors in Chinese companies often scrutinize state media reports for hints about regulators’ thinking.
China is the world’s largest consumer of tobacco products, with more than 300 million smokers, according to the World Health Organization.
August 6, 2021
RELX Plans $100 Million U.S. Stock Sale

Photo: RELX
RLX Technology, parent to the RELX brand of vaping products, has filed with the Security Exchange Commission in the U.S. to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering (IPO).
The $100 million request is well below the $1 billion the company said it expected to raise when it announced Citigroup as the bank of record for its planned initial public offering in the U.S., people with knowledge of the matter said.
The Shenzhen-based company, which counts Sequoia Capital among its backers, boasts a 62.6 percent market share in China for closed-system vaping products in terms of retail sales, according to a press release.
“The company has partnered with 110 authorized distributors to supply its products to over 5,000 RELX Branded Partner Stores, and over 100,000 other retail outlets nationwide, covering over 250 cities in China,” the release states.
Revenue for the company nearly doubled in the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2020 to $324 million, with net income of $16 million.
The Beijing, China-based company was founded in 2018 and booked $400 million in sales for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2020. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol RLX. RLX Technology filed confidentially on Oct. 26, 2020. Citi is the sole bookrunner on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.
Chinese companies are choosing to list in the U.S. at a rapid pace despite Congress approving legislation that could force firms to withdraw from American exchanges in a dispute over audit inspection rules. Mainland and Hong Kong firms have raised $14.8 billion through U.S. initial public offerings in 2020, the second-best year on record, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The IPO plan comes on the heels of fellow e-cigarette device maker Smoore International Holdings’ much sought-after Hong Kong debut share sale. Smoore raised HKD8.19 billion ($1.06 billion) in July after pricing its IPO at the top end of a marketed range.
The share price has soared more than 300 percent.
January 5, 2021
Relx Opens Bioscience Lab to Research E-Cigs

Photo: RELX Technology
RELX Opens Bioscience Lab to Enhance E-Cigarette Research
RELX Technology has started operations at its newly established e-cigarette bioscience laboratory to conduct systematic research on the effects of e-cigarettes through in vivo and in vitro tests, as well as conduct pre-clinical safety assessments.
Located in Shenzhen, China, the bioscience laboratory is currently conducting research on the impact of RELX products on animal cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous systems, to better carry out a comprehensive impact evaluation of vapor products.
“Science is the foundation of trust. As the industry leader, we have the responsibility to expand the borders of e-cigarette science and explore the unknown,” said Kate Wang, founder and CEO of RELX, in a statement.
At the company’s recent lab open day, RELX also announced its plan to establish a “1+4” scientific research approach—i.e. anchored by platform development, followed by toxicological assessment, clinical assessment, perception behavior study and long-term assessment.
“E-cigarettes are sometimes viewed with suspicion because we have incomplete knowledge,” said Yilong Wen, RELX Co-founder and head of science, research and development and supply chain, “The RELX bioscience lab’s mission is to explore the unknown. We want to collect evidence through a scientific approach and strive to prove the potential for e-cigarettes to be less harmful, and in doing so, provide users the option to choose an alternative.”
To ensure the reliability and quality of its products, RELX established a chemical and physical laboratory in 2018. The laboratory is certified by the internationally recognized China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment.
RELX is currently conducting research projects on different topics with six universities including the Sun Yat-sen University and Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, two hospitals and nine scientific research institutions.
September 18, 2020