Pot grower Zenabis said Friday that it secured a 60 million Canadian dollar ($47.2 million) loan from an undisclosed private fund to pay down debt owed to competitor Sundial Growers, heading off what it alleged was a hostile takeover bid.
Arizona recreational marijuana sales kicked off Friday after the state's Department of Health Services awarded the first 86 licenses, launching the expanded marijuana industry in the state less than three months after voters approved a legalization measure.
Cannabis subsidiaries of Pyxus International have filed for creditor protection in Canada as the bankrupt U.S. tobacco company seeks to unload its Canadian marijuana brand.
A woman suing Charlotte's Web Holdings Inc. has argued that the CBD company shouldn't be able to pause or escape her proposed class action over its labeling of products as dietary supplements, saying that identifying them as such violates state and federal laws.
Donald Trump's flurry of midnight pardons before leaving office gave a welcome reprieve to a dozen nonviolent cannabis offenders, but many were passed over in what advocates close to the effort described as a hectic, last-minute blitz that underscored the need for sweeping pardon reform.
State legislatures have kicked off their 2021 legislative sessions in capitals across the U.S., introducing and reintroducing a flurry of cannabis-related bills, aimed at everything from worker protections for cannabis patients to full legalization. Here are some of the bills that saw movement in the past week.
A Republican lawmaker introduced a bare-bones congressional bill to recategorize cannabis to a less restrictive legal tier Tuesday, inaugurating what advocates hope will be a landmark year for federal marijuana reform.
An Illinois man must pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission more than a half-million dollars and is permanently banned from selling securities after running an alleged $19 million cannabis stock scheme that generated no revenue for its investors, the commission announced Thursday.
An Arizona federal judge on Thursday granted a Canadian pot entrepreneur's bid to toss his former business partners' intellectual property suit over their unrealized cannabis vape venture, finding the court lacks jurisdiction over the case.
A Washington, D.C., appellate court on Thursday overturned a man's conviction for facilitating a marijuana sale, ruling that the district's 2014 cannabis legalization initiative made it lawful for adults to transfer small amounts of marijuana to each other as long as no monetary reward is involved.
Struggling cannabis company CannTrust said it will settle shareholder suits over regulatory lapses through a CA$50 million ($39.6 million) trust fund under the auspices of the Ontario court handling its restructuring.
The Biden administration moved Wednesday to institute a broad "regulatory freeze" on last-minute rules issued by the Trump administration, directing agencies across the federal government to withdraw or delay action on potentially dozens of regulations.
Michigan's cannabis regulator is proposing to create a program to partner multistate cannabis operators and large in-state entities with social-equity applicants to boost minority ownership of marijuana businesses.
A trade group representing Massachusetts dispensaries is suing the state's Cannabis Control Commission to stop new regulations on cannabis delivery, saying the new rules ignore state law that establishes the ability to deliver pot to licensed retailers.
A New York-based commercial mortgage lender filed suit against a cannabis cultivation space developer for allegedly defaming the lender through online statements after a $6.5 million loan agreement fell through.
The incoming Biden administration likely presents a more cannabis-friendly U.S. Department of Justice, but that's not likely to alter the U.S. Trustee Program's strong stance against marijuana-tied bankruptcies, experts told Law360.
A group of investors has pushed back against Canadian cannabis company Aurora's bid to dismiss their stock-drop suit, saying the company has all but admitted it knew the country's marijuana market was oversaturated.
A former U.S. senator from Florida and onetime top governor's aide has filed a motion to join the defense team for e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. as it faces a large multidistrict litigation set for five bellwether trials beginning in 2022.
A New York federal judge threw out a U.K. businessman's multimillion-dollar fraud suit against a former high-level cabinet member of the Trump administration, finding Tuesday that the businessman failed to allege a pattern of racketeering.
A Washington state cannabis company trying to break into the Oklahoma medical marijuana market told a federal judge Tuesday that the U.S. Constitution's dormant commerce clause preempts the state's residency rules, and that officials were muddying the waters by invoking the drug's federal illegality.
A New York federal judge has tossed a proposed investor class action accusing a tobacco and hemp biotechnology company of hiding a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its accounting problems, finding that the company had already told investors about the underlying issues.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a budget Tuesday that would increase the state's top income tax rate to create a combined rate that's the highest in the country, unless the federal government provides billions of dollars in aid.
Canadian alcohol giant Alcanna Inc. said it will spin off its retail marijuana business and combine it with a discount pot retailer in a deal that values the new company at 130 million Canadian dollars ($102 million), an all-stock transaction steered by Bennett Jones LLP, Stikeman Elliott LLP and Torys LLP.
Koch-backed advocacy group Americans for Prosperity has urged the Mississippi Supreme Court to toss a challenge to the state's medical marijuana legalization vote, saying the measure's opponents are pushing for an "absurd" outcome that would cripple voters' ability to change laws.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday released its final rule governing the cultivation of hemp, some 14 months after publishing draft regulations that industry stakeholders decried as overly burdensome.
Amid the challenges of the pandemic, a shifting digital landscape, and increasing calls for diversity and inclusion, general counsel responsibilities are expanding into six new areas, highlighting the need for both in-house and outside counsel to serve as strategic and empathetic business leaders, say Wendy King at FTI Consulting and David Horrigan at Relativity.
As clients increasingly demand better efficiency, predictability and cost-effectiveness from their legal partners, especially during the pandemic, law firms and other legal service providers may need to explore new ways to bundle and deliver services — and move away from billing by time, says Joey Seeber at Level Legal.
No U.S. law firm has its shares listed on a public stock exchange unlike some lucrative overseas counterparts, but by allowing nonattorneys to become stakeholders in law firms, Arizona may have paved the way for this to change should other U.S. states — particularly New York — follow suit, says Marc Lieberman at Kutak Rock.
Some recent litigation developments demonstrate efforts by law firms and their clients to search for opportunities in the COVID-19 economic fallout, while others — such as the rise of contingency fee arrangements — reflect acceleration of tendencies that were already underway, says William Weisman at Therium Capital.
In the face of rising client demands due to the pandemic and the changing regulatory environment, and with remote work continuing for the foreseeable future, lawyers should invest in their well-being by establishing inspiring yet realistic goals for 2021 — one month at a time, says Krista Larson at Morgan Lewis.
"Confidential" and other search terms commonly used to locate privileged documents during e-discovery are pretty ineffective, so practitioners should consider including specific types of keywords that are demonstrably better at targeting privilege, say Robert Keeling at Sidley and Rishi Chhatwal at AT&T.
Companies can expect numerous changes to food and beverage regulation in 2021 — including new leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more stringent enforcement efforts by the agencies, further use of virtual inspections, and progress in regulatory approvals for hemp and CBD products, say Robert Hibbert and Ryan Fournier at Wiley.
Lawyers working remotely during the pandemic while physically outside the jurisdictions in which they are licensed will find some comfort in a recent American Bar Association opinion sanctioning such practice, but there is ambiguity regarding the contours of what's allowed, say attorneys at Harris Wiltshire.
Opinion
The cannabis industry is helping generate much-needed tax revenue and has kept people employed during the pandemic — it's time to provide these essential businesses with mainstream banking services, says Aaron Smith at the National Cannabis Industry Association.
Whether geared toward a global audience or a particular client, a law firm's articles, blog posts and client alerts should strive to be original by harnessing a few editorial tools and following the right distribution sequence, say Steven Andersen and Tal Donahue at Infinite Global.
Perspectives
Judges should take into consideration the several points of law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion — from traffic stops to charging decisions and sentencing recommendations — that often lead to race-based disparate treatment before a criminal defendant even reaches the courthouse, say Judge Juan Villaseñor and Laurel Quinto at Colorado's Eighth Judicial District Court.
Lawyers should remember that the basics of interpersonal relationships have not changed despite the completely virtual environment caused by the pandemic, and should leverage the new year as an excuse to connect with clients in several ways, say Megan Senese and Courtney Hudson at Pillsbury.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act saw important legal developments over the course of 2020, but the law's ultimate constitutionality and the future of consumer protection from unwanted calls will likely hinge on the U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming ruling in Facebook v. Duguid, says Scott Shaffer at Olshan Frome.
For law firms planning overhauls in their information technology infrastructures in light of hard lessons learned from pandemic-era transition to remote work, there are five ways to ensure even the biggest tech upgrade has minimal impact on client service, says Brad Paubel at Lexicon.
Careful construction of an amicus brief's essential elements — including the table of contents, which determines whether a brief gets studied or skimmed — and the order in which they are crafted are key to maximizing a party's hoped-for impact on a case before the U.S. Supreme Court or other appellate courts, say Mark Chopko and Karl Myers at Stradley Ronon.