USA: Attorney General accused of harassing cannabis companies

No laws were broken, but the event serves as a reminder to American companies of the cannabis that the federal government can still interfere in their business transactions.

General Counsel William Barr has thus forced companies to produce thousands of documents costing millions of dollars, the review of which slowed down certain operations, if not completely scuttling the announced merger between MedMen and PharmaCann.

A whistleblower working at the Department of Justice, John Elis, said that these requests had more to do with Attorney General William Barr's personal views on the cannabis trade than with a need to monitor possible monopoly positions that cannot exist today in the US cannabis market.

John Elias testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as part of an investigation into whether the department had been used for political purposes. He told the committee that the Justice Department's career lawyers believed that a proposed merger between MedMen and PharmaCann required no further antitrust investigation. In contrast, William Barr mobilized the Antitrust Division's leadership and ordered a full investigation, requesting thousands of documents, cell phone records, computer hard drive images and entire copies of mobile devices from the companies, and answering dozens of detailed questions on a wide range of business interests.

In addition to the MedMen - PharmaCann merger, a dozen other mergers and acquisitions were scrutinized.

«At one point, cannabis investigations accounted for five of the eight active merger investigations in the office that is responsible for the transportation, energy and agriculture sectors of the U.S. economy,» said Elias. «The investigations were so numerous that personnel from other bureaus were mobilized to assist, including telecommunications, technology and media.»

In his written testimony, Elias said that while responding to internal concerns about the investigations, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Makan Delrahim «acknowledged that the investigations were motivated by the fact that the cannabis industry was unpopular »on the fifth floor«,» a reference to William Barr's offices.