Juul shipped a million contaminated e-cigarette pods, claims lawsuit from former employee

The US electronic cigarette company Juul has been accused of shipping one million contaminated e-cigarette nicotine pods, in a lawsuit filed by a former employee.

Siddharth Breja, who was the company’s senior vice president for finance until March 2019, has claimed that his employment was unlawfully terminated in “retaliation for whistleblowing and objecting to the contaminated pod shipment and other illegal and unsafe conduct that has jeopardized and continues to jeopardize public health and safety and the lives of millions of consumers, many of them children and teens.”

The lawsuit, filed on 29 October at the US District Court of the Northern District of California, outlines the situations in which Breja said he raised concerns about decisions allegedly made by senior members of staff.

These, Breja alleges, included intentions to ship expired or nearly expired products, refusing to put expiration dates on products, and a proposal to trick EU regulators so that the company could sell a product that would exceed nicotine concentration …