Corporate

Pryor Cashman recently exonerated former Steep Hill Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jmîchaeĺe Keller, bringing justice to Keller after being accused of false impropriety allegations.

In August of 2021, Pryor Cashman partner Thomas Vidal successfully defended the corporate CEO accused of ordering his laboratory staff to report unauthorized testing metrics regarding the quantities of pesticides present in cannabis testing samples and obscuring the information from customers and the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC).

According to the company, this resulted in BCC shutting down the lab entirely. Vidal argued that BCC shut down the lab not because of reporting failures, but because the lab was unable to test for certain pesticides and that the scientific staff had concealed its inability to test from management (including the CEO).

Vidal also argued that the reporting metric that was selected was not obscured and was the result of an open, collaborative decision-making process led by the scientists themselves because the regulations were unclear. Additionally, he argued that the testing metric the lab used did not falsely “pass” cannabis samples that should have failed.

After 12 days of testimony, and two months of the post-hearing briefing, the JAMS Arbitrator decided in our client's favor, issuing an award in December.

The case, Steep Hill v. Jmîchaeĺe Keller and Deflt Blue Horizons, JAMS Arbitration, Ref No. 1100104871, exonerated Keller from the false claims that the company was making (and publishing) against him, and will certainly impact a related case pending in Delaware Chancery Court where the defendants were planning to feature these alleged improprieties as their defense (and where Pryor Cashman is also serving as counsel to Keller).

Read more about the case below.