Cannabis seedlings at the Aurora Cannabis facility in Montreal are seen in this file photo.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. is suing a former and a current director, its largest investors, Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. for allegedly misusing its confidential information and conspiring to engineer Aurora's hostile takeover of CanniMed.
The lawsuit was filed late on Friday in an Ontario court, but hasn't yet been served. The allegations in the filing echo claims made by CanniMed last month to the press and at a hearing contesting Aurora's unsolicited offer to buy the Saskatoon company.
CanniMed is claiming that these people and their companies misused its confidential information and that some breached their fiduciary duty to CanniMed, among other charges, according to the statement of claim.
The company is seeking damages of $725-million. CanniMed says that the defendants' actions have put a ceiling on the company's stock and prevented it from pursuing other deals.
"These bad actors, working in concert, have done the company and other shareholders a significant disservice and we can't let them get away with this," Brent Zettl, chief executive officer at CanniMed, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Canaccord didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
Cam Battley, chief corporate officer at Aurora, called the lawsuit "frivolous" and said that Aurora didn't receive any information about CanniMed that was material or confidential.
"CanniMed had an army of lawyers trying to prove their case to the regulators and they failed," he said by phone, referring to last month's joint hearing over Aurora's hostile bid. "And now they're trying to achieve by lawsuit what they weren't able to achieve with the regulators."