Vince is an award-winning business lawyer, problem solver and dealmaker. His clients run the gamut from individual investors and entrepreneurs to widely held domestic and international corporations. Based in Portland, Oregon, he is Managing Partner of Harris Sliwoski and Editor of the Canna Law Blog and the Psychedelics Law Blog.
I stumbled upon this recent post by Jason Paltrowitz titled “Lawful but Awful: The Small Cap IPO Cycle.” It contains some interesting findings and I like everything about it for cannabis companies, except the conclusion. The conclusion is that OTCQX and OTCQB markets are a good alternative to senior U.S. exchanges for small companies. The
Here’s to a relaxing holiday with family and friends. Enjoy the holiday! We will be back next week with our regular programming.
We are helping build out another cannabis banking program here in Oregon. My law firm has done a series of these for credit unions (“CU”s) and other financial institutions (“FIs”) going back to 2014. We have also handled a good bit of hemp banking work– mostly in 2019 and 2020 before that industry cratered. In
The lawsuit filed on October 26 against Merrick Garland to “end federal cannabis prohibition” wouldn’t really end federal cannabis prohibition. If you had that impression, it may be because reporting on this topic has been subpar. Many of the headlines are incomplete or downright misleading. Some stories take several paragraphs to explain the actual nature
Can a creditor, landlord or other third party take a security interest in an OLCC license? Can an OLCC licensee collateralize or pledge its license– as if that license were personal property, and not just a permission conferred by the state? These are two sides of an academic question we’ve been batting around for years
Cannabis businesses use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) constantly. This may be due to a series of factors, or some combination thereof: 1) the relative hardship of acquiring and protecting intellectual property over marijuana-related processes and products, today and historically; 2) a general modus operandi of “close to the vest” dealings in an industry that historically was
The internet is littered with writings on the relative merits of corporate forms and tax elections for cannabis businesses. Even the best of these articles are as dull as ditchwater, because the topic is tax. Most of the authors mention subchapter S taxation at some point, and the showier ones may even dredge up cannabis
It’s been a minute since we wrote about the new OLCC tax compliance rules for retailers. These temporary rules require all retailers to certify tax compliance via the Oregon Department of Revenue (DOR) in order to renew or transfer ownership of a marijuana retailer license. OLCC has a pretty good FAQ sheet here, as part
I’m pretty sure that more ink has been spilled on the Secure and Fair Enforcement Act (“SAFE Banking”), than any other proposed cannabis law. It just won’t pass and it just won’t die. Specifically, SAFE Banking was introduced in 2017 and it passed the House seven times (seven times!) with bipartisan support since 2019. The
I’d like to send a shoutout to tax lawyer Nick Richards for an intriguing opinion piece published on Friday, September 1 in Marijuana Business Daily. Nick outlines two approaches to potentially help cannabis businesses recoup buckets of cash from Uncle Sam. One approach, which is known to us, may be utilized by cannabis businesses throughout
