OSC v. Aurora Cannabis Inc. and others (2017)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In 2017 and 2018 the Ontario Securities Commission and the Saskatchewan securities regulator jointly decided three applications arising from Aurora Cannabis' hostile bid for CanniMed Therapeutics. The panels refused to shorten the bid period, ordered corrected disclosure and declined to cease-trade CanniMed's rights plan. No insider trading was alleged.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	OSC
Release number	2017-71
Date filed	2017-12-08
Date resolved	2018-03-15
Court	Capital Markets Tribunal (Ontario)
Status	judgment
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Aurora Cannabis Inc. (entity) ; Cannimed Therapeutics Inc. (entity) ; The Special Committee of The Board of Directors of Cannimed Therapeutics Inc. (entity)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Ontario Securities Commission and the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan heard the applications together in December 2017 and issued reasons on March 15, 2018.

Aurora had signed lock-up agreements with large CanniMed shareholders and launched a take-over bid; CanniMed had separately agreed to an arrangement with Newstrike Resources and adopted a shareholder rights plan. The special committee asked for Aurora's offer to be treated as an 'insider bid' under Multilateral Instrument 61-101; that wording is where the insider-trading tag came from.

The panels denied Aurora an exemption to shorten the 105-day deposit period, allowed it to buy up to five percent of CanniMed's shares, found insufficient evidence that the locked-up shareholders acted jointly with Aurora, ordered amended news releases and circular, and left CanniMed's rights plan in place. No penalty was imposed. The tag has been removed.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Timeline

2017-12-04 Other
2017-12-08 Notice of Hearing
2017-12-08 Reasons and Decision
2017-12-13 Reasons and Decision
2017-12-22 Reasons and Decision
2018-03-15 Reasons and Decision

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.