Suit alleges Invicta Watch CEO’s double-dealings harmed Eden Prairie-based ShopHQ

The steep decline of home shopping networks may not be the only reason for the demise of ShopHQ, once a national player in the industry.

A lawsuit filed by a ShopHQ owner, IV Media, said self-dealing by one of its board members, including $7.7 million in fraudulent payments, damaged the company financially.

The lawsuit blames Eyal Lalo — chief executive of Invicta Watch Co. and a former director and vice chairman of ShopHQ’s former parent, iMedia Brands — for shouldering the Eden Prairie company with deals that “were able to reap cash, stock, and other benefits” for the benefit of Invicta at ShopHQ’s expense.

The lawsuit described iMedia’s corporate governance during Lalo’s time on the board as “riddled with conflicts of interest.”

Calls to Invicta and lawyers for ShopHQ were not returned.

The suit was made public in January through an adversary proceeding in the still-open bankruptcy filing of Legacy IMBDS Inc., which was the entity that took a parent company of ShopHQ into bankruptcy in June 2023.

IV Media, controlled by Manoj Bhargava, the billionaire owner of 5-Hour Energy, was a surprise winner of ShopHQ during a 2023 bankruptcy auction. It beat out a previous bidder, ultimately paying about $40 million for ShopHQ.

But the plan fell apart quickly. ShopHQ ended live 24-hour programming, once the hallmark of home shopping channels, and moved to taped programming.

In late 2024 and early 2025, the company laid off nearly all of its employees, and closed its Eden Prairie offices and production studios and its Bowling Green, Ky., distribution facility.

To be sure, ShopHQ suffered from being in an industry that itself is in steep decline and from constantly changing leadership and strategies.

Founded in 1990 as ValueVision International Inc., it went public a year later. As time went on, the parent company and the channel changed names several times: ValueVision Media, ShopNBC, Evine Live, iMedia Brands.

It hit its peak in 2007 and 2008, when ShopHQ employed nearly 1,100 employees and had annual revenue of $781 million.

Now frontrunner QVC, which had merged with HSN, is weighing bankruptcy as digital shopping shifts even more quickly to social media and direct-to-consumer websites.

From 2009 to 2023, as ShopHQ operated under different parent companies, it was never profitable, according to the lawsuit.

After the layoffs in early 2025, ShopHQ all but disappeared until the fall. Arena Group, which bills itself as “an innovative media and technology company” and owns publications such as TheStreet and Parade, announced it had acquired the intellectual property of ShopHQ from IV Media.

The majority owner of the Arena Group is Simplify Inventions, also owned by Bhargava. Efforts to reach Bhargava were unsuccessful.

In October, ShopHQ began a series of 20- to 30-minute weekly or semi-weekly livestreams on YouTube, Instagram and other social media channels.

Invicta watches were once a mainstay on ShopHQ. Over the years, various CEOs of ShopHQ tried to make the company less reliant on the brand and the jewelry and watch category in general.

Lalo’s investment group in 2019 bought $4 million in stock in iMedia, then ShopHQ’s parent company. After the deal making him one of the company’s largest shareholders, he was appointed as vice chair of the firm. He served on the board of directors from 2019 to June 2023.

The lawsuit accuses Lalo of conflict of interest, using his position and insider relationships to make deals that were better for Invicta than iMedia.

“iMedia purchased entirely too much Invicta product from Invicta, not only causing it to expend excessive amounts of cash on goods that were not saleable but also causing iMedia to use valuable airtime through its ShopHQ business on marketing Invicta inventory,” the lawsuit said.

IMedia also funded expensive productions used to promote Invicta watches, including the annual “Invicta Voyager Cruise” package complete with round-trip airfares, luxury accommodations and cruise fares for employees and others.