Hello there, welcome to another M-Lex podcast. I'm James Panicki, M-Mlex's Australasian managing editor, coming to you from our offices in Melbourne, Australia. It's great to be with you. Now, it feels like yesterday

that cannabis producers were on the receiving end of police raids. Well, today, a major

cannabis industry deal is going to require clearance from the US Department of Justice,

surely the ultimate sign of respectability. Cure Leaf aims to create the US's biggest cannabis company through an $875 million

US dollar merger with grassroots and regulatory clearance won't necessarily be a walk in the park

with the DOJ this year issuing second requests for information on nearly every cannabis merger.

MNEC's senior correspondent Jason Booth has been following this story

and he joins me now from our offices in New York, New York.

Hello Jason.

Hello, James.

Jason, reading your recent analysis of the cannabis industry,

I was struck by the fact that this merger is by no means the first

to be vetted by the DOJ. How many cannabis deals are being held up by antitrust concerns

at the moment?

Well, we've identified seven currently, and there may well be more, but pretty much every

major deal since the start of this year has been held up in one way or the other with second request from information.

And in much of the larger deals and even some of the smaller deals.

And is there any sense as to why that might be?

I mean, clearly there's a flurry of M&A activity in this particular

industry, but why would the DOJ be holding up these mergers with second request for information?

Well, that's a good question. And it's not entirely clear at this point, partly because

the DAJ has not actually opposed any of these deals yet.

...