Most business purchase transactions we see in the cannabis space are structured to have a concept of “closing”, which I’ve described before here. Essentially, this means that the parties sign, there is some gap of time for them to take care of certain things, and then the business is sold. Today, I want to examine
For the past few years, I have been engaged as an expert witness on a series of cannabis litigation matters here in Oregon. The way litigants use experts varies across jurisdictions due to local rules of evidence and other factors, but in any jurisdiction, compelling expert testimony can make or break a case. In this
The City of L.A. has had no shortage of tweaks and changes to its cannabis laws and regulations over the past four years. Admirably, as industry issues have arisen, the City and its Department of Cannabis Regulation (“DCR“) have tried to keep pace. At times though, that pace has been glacial much to the chagrin
Last month, I wrote a post explaining some of the issues buyers of cannabis businesses face when dealing with the landlords for the purchased business. In a nutshell, leases almost always contain clauses restricting assignment and subletting, and these clauses will often note that certain changes of control of the cannabis tenant are considered assignments
Nationwide, cannabis companies and advocates are hailing the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act as the savior of the future of cannabis (a copy of the bill is here). If the Act passes, we will finally have federal legalization and the consequences of the current federal conflict will end, or, at least be reversed in the
Getting to closing on a cannabis M&A transaction is always a hurdle (read about that process in detail here). There are always a lot more contingencies to closing for cannabis M&A transactions than for run-of-the-mill businesses that don’t operate in highly regulated fields (e.g., cannabis acquisitions will require approval from state and possibly local agencies).
Over the last few months, I’ve written a few posts about SB-519, a bill introduced by California State Senator Scott Wiener earlier this year that is intended to decriminalize a host of psychedelics – from psilocybin to ketamine to LSD (you can read those posts here, here, and here). SB-519 has passed through the California
This week, Governor Newsom took a major step in reforming California’s (pretty tortured) cannabis licensing program by signing into law Assembly Bill 141, which generally consolidates all cannabis licensing and oversight into the Department of Cannabis Control (“DCC”). In our view, centralizing all licensing and regulatory oversight into a single agency in California is a
Summer’s here, a massive heatwave just hit the west coast, and fire season is right around the corner. This is the harsh reality for west coast residents and it doesn’t look like that’ll change anytime soon. Wildfires have a severe impact on entire communities and everyone can be impacted. But there are some unique issues
In a case we’ve been watching closely, a California District Court Judge recently denied a motion by cannabis company Capna Intellectual. The motion sought to dismiss tobacco giant ITG Brands’ dilution claim for its “KOOL” brand. ITG’s branding uses “KOOL OOs” while Capna’s branding uses “BLOOM OOs.” As a refresher, in December 2020, ITG had
