Archives: Morning Breakouts

The tobacco giant wrote down its investment in Juul by more than a third, acknowledging that it hadn’t anticipated the regulatory pitfalls confronting the e-cigarette market. Altria hoped to tap the vaping market in the face of declining smoking rates and cigarette sales in the United States. Now the company is under investigation by the FTC over its role in the resignation of Juul’s former chief executive and his replacement by an Altria executive. Meanwhile, the total number of vaping-related lung disease cases continues to climb.

Siddharth Breja, a former senior vice president of global finance for Juul, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday based on claims that he was retaliated against for raising concerns about the contaminated shipment. Breja describes a "reckless" and "win-at-all costs" culture at Juul, primarily driven by the company's former CEO, Kevin Burns, who was replaced in a management shake-up last month. A Juul spokesman said in a statement that the claims are "baseless."