American cannabis research firm New Frontier Data (Financial Frontier Group Inc.) has filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. courts against Prohibition Partners (PP Intelligence Ltd), a UK research group, and cannabis investor Andy Defrancesco.
The suit, originally filed March 1, 2019, was extended based on a filing April 26. It stems from a dispute over rights to research and written analysis of a report on cannabis investments in Oceania the two parties agreed to jointly produce and market, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
While Defrancesco’s relationship with Prohibition Partners is unclear, he weighed in with a series of tweets last October after the two research companies’ talks over a broader partnership collapsed. In the tweets, Defrancesco claimed New Frontier Data plagiarized Prohibition Partners work in one of its reports. New Frontier alleges in the lawsuit that the tweets, which called out New Frontier CEO Giadha Aquirre De Carcer personally, constitute “assault libel and slander.”
New Frontier has requested a jury trial in the case, in which it is seeking “damages compensatory, punitive and other,” as well as legal costs.
