A recent expose on an e-cigarette company demonstrated how corporate filings can be used to identify the individuals behind a business venture. The company, named Puff Bar, has been opaque about who manufacturers the e-cigarettes they sell and used the mystery behind the company as a marketing tactic. On the company’s website, they write: “But who makes Puff Bar? Everyone wants to know the mastermind team behind the latest craze in the world of electronic cigarettes.”
The nonprofit news organization FairWarning, which focuses on public health, consumer and environmental issues, set out to answer that question by utilizing corporate filings and trademark applications. FairWarning discovered that a Statement of Information filed by Puff Bar in July 2020 with the California Secretary of State listed Nick Minas and Patrick Beltran as CEO and CFO, respectively, of the company. The two men, who are both in their 20s and went to high school together in southern California, had previously operated e-cigarette company eliquidstop.com, which sold the liquid used in vape pens and disposable vape products. FairWarning found a podcast the two men had appeared on in 2018, during which they disclosed that eliquidstop.com was founded in 2017 and had already generated about $2 million in sales by the time of the podcast.
A previous investigation of Puff Bar by Bloomberg news identified the main distributor for Puff Bar as Cool Clouds, an LA-based company that owned numerous federal trademarks for Puff Bar products. However, following the Bloomberg expose, Cool Clouds’ owner claimed that the company would no longer be distributing Puff Bar products in the U.S. FairWarning conducted an analysis of federal trademarks and found that a newly formed Delaware corporation, DS Technology Licensing LLC, began registering trademarks for Puff Bar products at the same time that Cool Clouds claimed to be disassociating with the company. While FairWarning was unable to definitively link DS Technology Licensing with Cool Clouds, they note that the companies “appear to be connected” as the same attorney has filed for trademarks on behalf of both companies.
While corporate filings don’t tell the whole story behind a company, they do provide a paper trail useful for untangling complicated webs. In this case, a combination of corporate filings, litigation, trademark applications and a podcast helped shed light on Puff Bar.