A bankruptcy judge ordered the founder of Bang Energy to pay $63,517 for his Instagram posts that disparaged company advisers who sold the energy drink brand to rival Monster Beverage Corp., Bloomberg News reported. Judge Peter Russin said in a court filing yesterday that the since-deleted social media posts by Bang founder Jack Owoc “could best be described as a rant” and risked harming Bang’s business because they potentially questioned the integrity of the bankruptcy sale process. Owoc, who was fired as Bang chief executive officer in March, made the comments under posts from a @BangEnergy.CEO Instagram account that had 1 million followers. At the time, he was fighting company lawyers over ownership of Bang-affiliated social media accounts. Owoc deleted the disparaging comments after Judge Russin warned him that he could be fined $25,000 a day until the posts were removed, Bloomberg reported in April. Judge Russin said that Owoc’s posts violated a temporary restraining order he and his wife, Megan Owoc, had agreed to abide by. The judge said the Owocs also violated the restraining order because they failed to turn over passwords for TikTok, Twitter and Instagram accounts in question by a March deadline.
