FTC: JUUL Allegedly Pressured Altria to Exit E-Cigarette Market

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the business relationship between big tobacco company Altria Group, Inc., and e-cigarette manufacturer JUUL Labs. While the relationship between these two businesses has been the focus of other investigations, this one comes with explosive accusations that questions certain business decisions and moves made by both companies in recent years.

Reports of the FTC investigation began circulating in media outlets on April 3, 2020 following the accusation made by the FTC that there was a “secret” agreement made by the two companies that led to Altria pulling out of the e-cigarette market at the request of JUUL Labs executives. Altria had e-cigarette products on the market including MarkTen prior to announcing a $12.8 billion investment in JUUL toward the end of 2018 [read more here]. Altria announced in early December 2018 that it would be discontinuing the production of MarkTen and would effectively be leaving the e-cigarette market. Weeks later, it announced that it had invested $12.8 billion for a minority stake in JUUL Labs. The FTC is focusing its complaint on this period of time and the business decisions made and why those decisions were made.

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