By Timothy S. Donahue
Top Takeaways:
- Case revived: An Illinois federal judge has allowed distributor Power Buying Dealers USA Inc. to file a fifth amended complaint.
- Pricing claims: The distributor alleges JUUL gave competing wholesaler HS Wholesale better pricing, rebates and product allocations.
- Litigation continues: The ruling reverses the court’s earlier stance that no further amendments would be allowed.
An Illinois federal judge has reversed course and permitted distributor Power Buying Dealers USA Inc. to file a new complaint in its antitrust lawsuit accusing Juul Labs Inc. of illegal price discrimination.
The case, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, involves allegations that Juul favored another distributor, HS Wholesale Ltd., by offering better pricing terms, rebates, and product allocations for JUUL vaping products.
Power Buying Dealers argues that those practices violate the Robinson-Patman Act, a U.S. antitrust law that prohibits sellers from giving certain buyers price advantages that harm competition among distributors.
The distributor claims Juul’s arrangements allowed HS Wholesale to buy JUUL products at significantly lower net prices and to offer promotional incentives to retailers that Power Buying Dealers could not match.
The litigation has been ongoing for several years. Power Buying Dealers initially filed the lawsuit in 2021, claiming that the alleged preferential treatment diverted customers away from its distribution business.
In June 2025, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman dismissed the distributor’s third amended complaint with prejudice, noting that the pleadings failed to properly define a relevant geographic market where the competing distributors actually competed.
Under Robinson-Patman claims involving “secondary-line” discrimination, plaintiffs must demonstrate they competed with the favored distributor within the same geographic market and experienced competitive harm due to pricing differences.
Despite the earlier dismissal and the court’s statement that no further amendments would be allowed, the judge has now permitted Power Buying Dealers to try to correct the deficiencies and file a fifth amended complaint.
The decision keeps alive one of the few ongoing antitrust cases related to the e-cigarette distribution market, an area that has experienced significant regulatory and commercial upheaval in recent years as JUUL and other manufacturers faced lawsuits, regulatory crackdowns, and shifting market dynamics.
If the revised complaint withstands further motions to dismiss, the case could move forward to discovery and possibly trial, where the distributor must demonstrate that Juul’s pricing strategies harmed competition among wholesalers rather than just disadvantaging a single distributor.
