CannTrust settles all class action lawsuits

After settling all class action litigation against it and restoring its growing licences, cannabis grower CannTrust has new investment partners.

The company, with operations on Balfour Road in Pelham and in Vaughan, said the partner is Marshall Fields International B.V., a subsidiary of Kenzoll B.V., a Netherlands-based private equity investment company.

“CannTrust is a high-quality investment opportunity,” said Kenzoll B.V. owner Corné Melissen in a release.

“We’ve been consistently impressed with the current business, its operations and management team, and we’re excited to be working together.”

He said Kenzoll B.V. is confident Canadian cannabis legalization will give rise to more jurisdictions following suit and that CannTrust, a federally regulated licensed cannabis producer, will provide the company with the North American foundation and industry expertise to become a global leader.

In 2019, CannTrust had its licences to grow cannabis at its 39,950-square-metre Niagara Perpetual Harvest Facility in Pelham and operate its Vaughan manufacturing facility pulled by Health Canada.

At the time, the agency discovered cannabis was being grown in several unlicensed rooms at the Pelham facility before appropriate licences had been secured. Agency inspectors seized more than 4,000 kilograms of “implicated product” and took samples for more testing.

More than 350 staff worked at the Pelham operation at the time, and in October 2019, the company destroyed $77 million worth of plants and inventory as part of a compliance plan. The incident led to several top-level executives being released by the company.

Health Canada reinstated the Pelham facility’s licence in May 2020 and the Vaughan facility’s licence in August of the same year.

CannTrust chief executive officer Greg Guyatt said the company was happy to have a partner who shares its vision for the future.

“This is the culmination of two and a half years of hard work from the entire CannTrust team. We have remediated and improved our operations, restored our cannabis licences, relaunched our business, settled all class action litigation against the company and others, and now secured the right strategic partner,” he said.

CannTrust was founded in 2013 and started in the medical cannabis market before expanding into the recreational business. It producers a Grade A cannabis flower, with products sold in dried flower, pre-roll, vape, oil drops and capsule formats.

In 2018, it was named licensed producer of the year at the Canadian Cannabis Awards.

The company said it’s committed to “research and innovation, investing in developing technologies for new products in the medical, recreational, and wellness markets while contributing to the growing body of evidence-based research regarding the use and efficacy of cannabis.”