MAJOR WIN | Court Ruling Could Dismantle FDA’s De Facto Flavor Ban | RegWatch

RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com · Aug 22, 2026 · 31m

After years of bruising court battles, the U.S. vaping industry has finally scored a major win against the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

The Fifth Circuit ruled this week that FDA violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it imposed its comparative-efficacy standard without notice-and-comment rulemaking. FDA used that standard to issue more than one million marketing denial orders, producing what the court calls a “de facto ban” on nicotine-vape flavors other than tobacco.

In this breaking-news episode of RegWatch, Keller and Heckman attorney Eric P. Gotting, who represented NicQuid…