INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A lawsuit filed a by former Juul executive alleges that the company knew a batch of contaminated e-liquid had been used in about one million
pods shipped to retailers earlier this year, but did not inform customers
The lawsuit, first reported by BuzzFeed, was brought by Siddharth Breja, former senior vice president of global finance at Juul from May
2018 to March 2019, who alleges he was fired after complaining about the contaminated pods.News of the lawsuit comes the same day as
Juul’s announcement it will lay off about 500 people, or 10% to 15% of its workforce, and the departure of four executives, including
chief financial officer Tim Danaher
Juul is currently under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration, which claims the startup made misleading statements about its product
and targeting of teens.In the lawsuit, Breja claims that during a meeting on March 12, he learned a contaminated batch of mint e-liquid was
used to make 250,000 refill kits, or a total of one million pods, that had already been shipped to retailers.Breja alleges that when he
complained about Juul’s refusal to issue a product recall or health and safety notice, Danaher said doing so would cost the company
billions of dollars in lost sales, hurting its then-$38 billion valuation
About a week later, Breja says the company fired him, telling him that it was because he had misrepresented himself as former chief
financial officer at Uber
In the lawsuit, Breja says the claim was “preposterous,” and that he had accurately represented his former position as a chief financial
officer of a division at Uber.In the lawsuit, Breja also claims that Juul wanted to sell pods that were almost a year old and when he asked
the company to include an expiration or best by date, or a date of manufacture on the packaging, he was told by former CEO Kevin Burns that
“half our customers are drunk and vaping like mo-fos, who the fuck is going to notice the quality of our pods?”TechCrunch has contacted
Juul and the law firm representing Breja for comment
In a statement to BuzzFeed, Breja’s attorney Harmeet Dhillon said “Mr
Breja became aware of very concerning actions at the company, and he performed his duty to shareholders and to the board by reporting these
In exchange for doing that, he was inappropriatey terminated
This is very concerning, particularly since some of the issues he raised concerned matters of public safety.”Burns was replaced in
Crosthwaite, a former executive at Juul’s largest shareholder Altria
A replacement for Danaher has not been announced yet.
