Bang Energy liquidator sues founder Jack Owoc for $100M

Embattled energy drink founder Jack Owoc, ousted from the leadership of his company less than a year ago, now faces a lawsuit seeking more than $100 million in damages for his allegedly reckless management and use of company funds, largely to fund real estate deals. 

It was Owoc’s “boundless greed” and “self-dealing regime” that caused the collapse of his once booming energy drink business, Bang Energy, according to the lawsuit. The liquidator of Vital Pharmaceuticals, Bang’s parent company, an energy drink and nutritional supplement brand Owoc founded in 1993, filed the suit last month in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s Southern District of Florida, according to court records. It implicates Owoc, his wife Meg Liz Owoc, son Jon Owoc, and associates Branden Shaw and David Runnebaum.

The complaint alleges, among other things, that Jack Owoc used Bang’s company funds as his “personal piggy bank,” for paying his taxes, buying a small island, renovating his home and funding his eldest son’s real estate venture. In the view of the company’s finance director, Owoc thought of his and the company’s bank accounts as “one and the same,” the complaint states.

The suit alleges Owoc diverted $37.9 million in company funds to launch Owoc Real Estate Enterprise. Jack Owoc and Jon Owoc agreed the father would fund the acquisition of properties in South Florida, with management led by the son and his associates Shaw and Runnebaum. The firm purchased 13 properties in Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, Southwest Ranches, Pompano Beach and Delray Beach, according to the suit.  

The complaint also alleges that Jack Owoc used $8.3 million in company funds to buy the small island at 72100 Overseas Highway in Islamorada, and to fund renovations of his former home at 16730 Stratford Court in Southwest Ranches, which he bought for $7.7 million in 2019. 

Owoc, once described by a comedian as, “if Florida were a person,” is chronicled in the complaint as a “former high school science teacher with no bona-fide scientific credentials.” Now in his 60s and sporting a tanned, bodybuilder physique, Owoc frequently appears in his wife’s Owoc Family YouTube videos with their five young children, often dressed in bright colors and his gold chain bearing the Bang logo.

Owoc was booted from his role as CEO and chief science officer in March. In September of 2022, Monster Energy won a $293 million jury verdict in a false advertising lawsuit it brought against the company, which was fraudulently promoting that its beverages contained the compound creatine. Bang and Vital filed for bankruptcy shortly after. At that point, the company was facing an additional 63 pending or threatened lawsuits, according to this latest suit. Monster bought Vital for $362 million in July, according to published reports. 

In October, Owoc and his wife bought a waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale for $40 million, a price record for residential sales in Broward County. The mansion, mentioned in the lawsuit, is not directly implicated in Owoc’s alleged self-dealing.