A lawsuit filed in a federal court in California claims that e-cigarette maker Juul had a culture of disregarding health and safety concerns (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck) |
Washington (AFP) - E-cigarette leader Juul shipped around one million mint-flavored pods that were "contaminated," and then failed to inform customers or issue a recall once it realized the problem, according to a lawsuit filed by a former executive.
It comes as
the vaping industry is facing tough scrutiny amid a mysterious epidemic of lung
conditions linked to e-cigarette use that has killed 34 people and sickened
around 1,500 in recent months.
In the
lawsuit filed in a federal court in California on Tuesday, ex-senior vice
president for finance Siddharth Breja's legal team wrote he was sacked for
"whistleblowing" by objecting to the contaminated pods shipment and
other unsafe conduct like selling expired or near-expired products.
The claims
were termed "baseless" by the company, which told AFP that Breja was
terminated "because he failed to demonstrate the leadership qualities
needed in his role."
But Breja's
suit claimed that the company had a culture of disregarding health and safety
concerns, and was led in a "dictatorial manner" by its ex CEO Kevin
Burns who stepped down last month.
Breja said
he had brought up concerns over a lack of expiration date labeling to Burns,
who in an expletive-laden reply said half the firm's customers were "drunk
and vaping like mofos" and would not even notice the quality of its pods.
The suit
added that in March of this year, Breja learned that approximately 250,000
"Mint Refill Kits," or the equivalent of one million pods, had been
contaminated, though the nature of the contamination was not specified.
Overriding
his concerns, Juul refused to issue a product recall or issue a public health
and safety notice -- despite the fact that Breja was asked to recover
approximately $7,000,000 from the supplier of the eLiquid as a refund.
In a
statement to AFP, Juul said: "The allegations concerning safety issues
with Juul products are equally meritless, and we already investigated the
underlying manufacturing issue and determined the product met all applicable
specifications."
Breja's
attorney Harmeet Dhillon told AFP meanwhile that Juul's admission of a
manufacturing issue constituted a violation of Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) regulations.
"If
the product met 'all applicable specifications,' then why did Juul destroy the
remainder of the unshipped lot and instruct Mr Breja to obtain a
multi-million-dollar refund from its supplier?" she said.
US tobacco merchant Altria is writing down its stake in e-cigarette start-up Juul Labs by a third, or $4.5 billion, as that company contends with a regulatory backlashhttps://t.co/FS9q6gj8z2— AFP news agency (@AFP) 31 oktober 2019
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