Former owners of Curaleaf subsidiary to pay $500K to settle cannabis lawsuit

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(This story has been updated with a statement from Curaleaf.) 

The former owners of Oregon-based Cura Cannabis, one of the subsidiaries now owned by Massachusetts-based multistate operator Curaleaf, agreed this week to pay more than $500,000 to settle a class action lawsuit over mislabeled marijuana vape cartridges.

According to The Oregonian, the settlement stems from a case last year in which state regulators concluded that the Portland company had mislabeled 186,000 vape cartridges under its Select brand as 100% marijuana when in fact employees had cut the cannabis oil with additives.

The business has already paid $110,000 to the state in penalties for the incident.

An attorney for Cura did not respond to a request for comment by The Oregonian on Friday.

But in a statement emailed to MJBizDaily on Monday, Curaleaf said: “This is a disputed claim that originated from activity prior to Curaleaf’s acquisition of Cura Partners, as has been previously reported, and the settlement will be paid for entirely by the former shareholders of Cura Partners.”

After the incident last year, Cura Cannabis – which also does business as Cura Partners – finalized an all-stock acquisition deal by Curaleaf, which was originally announced in 2019 and valued at nearly $1 billion.

At the time of the sale in 2020, Cura was Oregon’s “largest marijuana company,” The Oregonian reported.

Cura also settled a separate lawsuit in July with a California investing consultant, Arcadia Capital, which claimed in a court filing that it was owed a portion of the acquisition deal price. The two sides reached an out-of-court settlement, and the terms were not disclosed.

Curaleaf trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol CURA and on the over-the-counter markets as CURLF.