An initiative by hemp stakeholders has been successful in reversing a potential ban on the trading of certain cannabis stocks including CBD and hemp food companies by the German stock exchange.
Initiated and guided by Germany’s HempConsult GmbH, the European Industrial Hemp Association successfully petitioned the clearinghouse Clearstream to shield several CBD companies who were in danger of losing trading services managed by the Luxembourg firm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse.
Among other companies cleared for trading are Naturally Splendid Enterprises, New Age Farm, Inc., Nutritional High International Inc., all of Canada; and CV Sciences, Inc., of the USA.
More than 100 other cannabis companies had already been excluded from a recently announced Clearstream provision that would stop the deposit of shares, due to take effect Sept. 28, 2018, by putting settlement restrictions on “companies primarily, directly or indirectly, active in the field of medical cannabis.”
Industry sources had said the changes at Clearstream were caused by recently updated guidelines from the local controlling authority, the Commission de Surveillance Financier (CSSF), that are based on outdated cannabis laws in Luxembourg.