In this episode of Bricks and Minifigs 2, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Coffeezilla investigation into the Bricks & Minifigs Lego controversy. They explain what Coffeezilla allegedly got wrong—especially around accounts payable, business acquisitions, liabilities, and ownership of consignment inventory.

Malcolm and Simone (experienced business buyers/sellers) dive into why the previous owner wasn’t being shady, how stock purchases transfer liabilities, why the “missing Legos” narrative misses the bigger picture, and the legal realities of taking over a business with existing obligations. They also discuss the broader saga, corporate responses, Brian Mansell’s history with the company, and why the focus should now be on properly resolving things with investigator Ben.

A must-watch for anyone following the Bricks & Minifigs drama, Lego collectors, business ethics enthusiasts, or fans of deep-dive investigations. What do you think—did Coffeezilla miss key business 101 details?

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] you had watched the Coffeezilla piece and were convinced by it on Bricks and Minifigs. And- I mean- Oh my God, I thought that you with your business background would immediately see what he was getting wrong.

Simone Collins: What was he getting wrong?

Malcolm Collins: So there were two big things he got wrong. Okay. The, the really big glaring one is when he said the previous owner sold some of the sets without sending the money to the guy, right?

And yet we see from her own words when they’re doing the transition of ownership, she goes, “You’re going to-” Yeah,

Simone Collins: I’m worried about... Yeah. “

Malcolm Collins: You’re

Simone Collins: gonna close out-” And they, they’re like, “We’re gonna have some- That’s gonna get handled by someone else.”

Malcolm Collins: That’s what I heard. No, no, no. But she wasn’t worried about the inventory.

Mm-hmm. She, she was worried more about closing out the accounts.

Speaker 2: These are ones that haven’t-- he has not been paid his percentage yet, and if I don’t have the tickets, I won’t know how much I need to pay him. That, that’s a business thing and not necessarily yours. If, if taking on the business, he takes on all that comes on that [00:01:00] part.

Speaker 3: What’s extremely funny about this piece in retrospect is you can see that the person, if not the CEO, at least somebody at Bricks & Minifigs properly understood the law that when you buy a business, you take on accounts payable

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. What that means in business speak is she knew part of the money that was meant to go to him had been unpaid. Oh. And she’s like, “I need to go over my notes.” She even specifically says, “I need to go over my notes to see those amounts.” And then they say, “No, we’ll take on that responsibility.”

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: This is a normal thing in business. Yeah. This isn’t her being shady. It’s not like-

Simone Collins: Well, that’s... When you acquire a company if it is not- an asset acquisition. If it’s a stock acquisition, you also acquire their liabilities

Malcolm Collins: Liabilities.

Simone Collins: And that, one of the liabilities- You acquire their liabilities

is your accounts payable, and that is accounts payable. Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that’s, that’s accounts... Th- this is the most 101 thing in business, and you were like, “Oh, there weren’t that many Legos in the store because she had sold some before,” and it’s like, n- that doesn’t, that doesn’t matter. And then the second thing- No,

Simone Collins: what, what Coffeezilla said is that, that I [00:02:00] thought was most notable was that the amount that’s sort of pending was much smaller than people thought.

It’s more, like, in the $20,000 range. That’s

Malcolm Collins: because he wasn’t inc- including the accounts payable in the amount pending.

Simone Collins: I thought that’s what the amount was, that the accounts payable- No ... oh.

Malcolm Collins: He was talking about the physical sets that were still in the store, because he didn’t seem to understand accounts payable.

Simone Collins: Hmm, I... Th- that can’t be. That’s too obvious.

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s obvious to you because you’re a business person. He very clearly, if you watch the piece, and he was calculating the amount of money that he said Bricks and Minifigs owed the , the guy, he just did an addition of all of the sets he could find in their inventory.

He didn’t- Oh ... include accounts payable, which would have, from what we’re hearing, maybe doubled that amount. So that was the first thing that really annoyed me.

Simone Collins: I just figured if that was the case, then they would have included, featured prominently in that particular investigative episode, Coffeezilla, I mean.

Like, i- she would say, “And the accounts payable amount was, like, $34,000.” She

Malcolm Collins: [00:03:00] literally says that. She goes, “I need to check my records so I can settle accounts with the people who have order-”

Simone Collins: Yeah, in, in... I know, from the recorded clip, but she doesn’t say how much that was. In the, in the subsequent interview that she had- Why?

Malcolm Collins: the subsequent... Because she’s being an idiot ...

Simone Collins: with Coffeezilla, she would have stated that amount. ‘

Malcolm Collins: Cause she’s being an idiot. But in the, i- when she’s having the store taken over, she literally says, “I need to settle the accounts,” implying there’s a large amount of accounts payable specifically to him.

Because, the,

Simone Collins: Then why has no one stated that amount?

Malcolm Collins: When we did our first episode, people were like, “Malcolm, it’s crazy that you saw things in this case that I just didn’t understand.” I think a lot of people are just ‘tards, Simone. That’s, that’s the, the- Well,

Simone Collins: no, but I mean, it, it, at the very le- oh, I guess the Brian, the original owner would not know the amounts because he wouldn’t have been aware, aware of what was sold and not.

Do you

Malcolm Collins: think Ben or Brian understands what accounts payable is? The, the, these-

Simone Collins: Yes, I, I imagine they do. But I also imagine they couldn’t know. Like, ‘cause i- if I’ve, if I’ve given something to a shop for consignment, I don’t know at any given day what [00:04:00] has sold and what hasn’t. Yeah. Like, there’s not... That’s just for us to know.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, which is why she said, “I need to check my records.” Okay. So that really annoyed me.

Speaker 4: Just so you understand why the law works this way, imagine if the law didn’t work this way and accounts payable magically disappeared or was transferred to the old owner of a business, , whenever the business changed hands. Now keep in mind, the owner of a business can be a business, , or not a specific individual.

So suppose, , one individual, , , , accrues a large amount of accounts payable in a business, , and they just then transfer that business to themselves for like a one dollar sale, right? , And they say, “Oh, all the money that I owed people with this business...” , N-no, or let’s not say themselves. Let’s say their brother.

, They say, “All the money this business owed immediately disappears because it transferred hands.” , That would be completely stupid. , Th- that would be like the easiest business trickeroo in the world. Like, it’s very obvious why n- you cannot have the law work this way

Malcolm Collins: And then the second thing that really annoyed me- ... that we can go further on-

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: [00:05:00] God. Crap ... is they keep focusing on whether or not she, she had the right to enter into the consignment deal, which is just totally irrelevant to any of the facts of the case.

Whether or not she had that... So think of it this way, Simone. Uh-huh. Suppose I own a garage right? Or let, let’s, let’s make this different. I’m leasing a garage from somebody else, okay? To make this even clearer. And then I use the garage I’m leasing in violation of the terms of my lease to do what, what do you what do you call that where you, like, pay somebody to s- park your car for you at, like, restaurants?

Well, I d- I don’t know the term. You pay somebody at a restaurant to park your-

Simone Collins: Valet ...

Malcolm Collins: valet. Okay, yes. So I use it for valet storage in violation of the agreement, right?

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Then the owner comes back and they go, “You didn’t have the right to run valet service here.” So then what they do is they take possession of...

Because I’m only subleasing the asset, right? They [00:06:00] retake possession of the garage, and then they turn around and start selling all of the cars that I had been- Yeah,

Simone Collins: like you parked a Ferrari and they’re like, “So this is mine now.”

Malcolm Collins: