Cronos Group U.S. Securities Class Action Settlement

Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Cronos Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CRON) common stock on the NASDAQ or another public U.S. market between May 9, 2019 and March 30, 2020 may qualify for a pro rata share of a $10,000,000 securities class action settlement. Claim Forms must be submitted online, or postmarked or received by mail, by November 9, 2026. Two details decide most claims here, and both come before you touch the form. Where you bought controls eligibility: Cronos is a Toronto-based company dual-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and purchases on the TSX or any other non-U.S. market are not in the Settlement Class at all, so an investor who bought only on the TSX cannot recover from this settlement — though they may be a member of a separate certified class action still pending in Ontario. When you sold controls whether you are actually paid: a share must have been held through at least one of the alleged corrective disclosures on February 24, March 2, March 17 or March 30, 2020 to carry any Recognized Loss, so shares bought during the class period and sold before February 24, 2020 recover $0.00 even though the holder is a Settlement Class Member bound by the release. Brokerage records are required for every transaction you report, and self-generated emails and spreadsheets are expressly not sufficient. The $200,000 expense cap covers Litigation Expenses only — attorneys' fees are a separate request of up to 33% of the fund, or $3,300,000 — and nothing at all is paid to anyone whose prorated payment calculates to less than $10.00. One date beats the claim deadline in importance: October 29, 2026 is the deadline to request exclusion or object, and staying in the class extinguishes any entitlement to a future recovery in the Ontario action on your U.S.-market shares, which is why Ontario Class Counsel opposes this settlement and intends to object to its approval. The Court has not yet approved the settlement and no payment date has been announced.

Do I Qualify?

You may be eligible if:

• You may qualify if you purchased or otherwise acquired the publicly traded common stock of Cronos Group Inc. on the NASDAQ, or any other public U.S. market for trading stocks, during the period from May 9, 2019 through March 30, 2020, both dates inclusive, and were allegedly damaged thereby. Your country of residence does not matter — the class definition covers all persons and entities irrespective of where they live. What matters is the market you traded on and when you sold, and each of those knocks out a large group of Cronos shareholders. The exchange test comes first. Cronos is headquartered in Toronto and its shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as well as the NASDAQ, and the notice states directly that purchases and acquisitions of Cronos common stock on the TSX or any non-U.S. public market are not part of the Settlement Class definition and are not impacted by the settlement. If you purchased only on the TSX you are not a Settlement Class Member here. You may instead be a member of the class certified in the Ontario action, Harpreet Badesha v. Cronos Group Inc. et al., CV-20-00641990-00CP, which the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified on October 10, 2023 for everyone who acquired Cronos shares on the secondary market anywhere in the world between 6:59 a.m. ET on May 9, 2019 and 4:33 p.m. ET on March 30, 2020. Check your records or ask your broker for trades on the NASDAQ, on a U.S. market, or in U.S. dollars; where the documentation does not name the market, the administrator will assume U.S.-dollar trades are U.S. trades and other-currency trades are not, and the claimant bears the burden of proving otherwise. The timing test comes second, and it is where most eligible-looking claims fall to zero. For a loss to be compensable it has to have been caused by the disclosure of the allegedly misrepresented information, so the Plan of Allocation only compensates shares held through at least one of the four dates on which corrective information is alleged to have removed artificial inflation from the price: February 24, 2020 before market open, March 2, 2020 after the close, March 17, 2020 after the close, and March 30, 2020 after the close. Every share purchased between May 9, 2019 and March 30, 2020 and sold before February 24, 2020 carries a Recognized Loss Amount of zero. Because the class period runs from May 2019, an investor who bought in the summer of 2019 and sold at a genuine loss in January 2020 is still a Settlement Class Member, still gives up the released claims, and still collects nothing. Matching is first-in, first-out: class-period sales are matched first against any shares you already held on May 9, 2019 and then against class-period purchases in chronological order, so the shares you held longest are treated as the ones you sold. A calculation that yields a gain is set to zero, and short positions recover nothing — the Recognized Loss Amount on a purchase that covers a short sale is zero, and so is the amount on a short sale that is never covered. Owning Cronos through a mutual fund does not qualify you; you had to buy on a U.S. market in your own account, though the fund itself may be a class member. Shares received by gift, inheritance or operation of law during the class period are not treated as purchases unless the donor or decedent bought them during the class period, no claim was submitted on them by anyone else, and the instrument of gift or assignment specifically provides for the assignment of the claim. Several categories are excluded from the class outright: Defendants Cronos Group Inc., Michael Gorenstein and Jerry F. Barbato; immediate family members of the individual Defendants; all directors, officers and other employees of Cronos during the class period; any firm, trust, corporation or other entity in which a Defendant has or had a controlling or beneficial interest; Cronos's employee retirement and benefit plans and their participants or beneficiaries to the extent they purchased through those plans; and the legal representatives, affiliates, control persons, heirs, successors-in-interest or assigns of any excluded person. That employee exclusion is broader than in many securities settlements — it is not limited to executives. Anyone who timely and validly requests exclusion by October 29, 2026 is out as well, and receiving a postcard notice is not evidence that you are a class member or that you will be paid, because the parties do not have access to your individual investment records.

Documentation is mandatory for every transaction and every holding you report, and missing paperwork is the most common reason securities claims are delayed or rejected. The Claim Form requires adequate supporting documentation in the form of broker confirmation slips, broker account statements, an authorized statement from your broker containing the transactional information found in a broker confirmation slip, or such other documentation as the Claims Administrator or Lead Counsel deems adequate. SELF-GENERATED EMAILS AND SPREADSHEETS ARE EXPRESSLY NOT SUFFICIENT — a printout of your own tracking sheet will not carry a claim. The form states in capitals that the parties do not have information about your transactions in Cronos common stock, which is why your own broker records are what gate the claim; if you no longer have them, request copies from your broker. There is no notice ID or claim number from a mailed postcard that substitutes for records. All five schedule lines on the form carry their own instruction to submit documentation: beginning holdings at the opening of trading on May 9, 2019, class-period purchases and acquisitions, purchases during the March 31 through June 26, 2020 look-back window, sales from May 9, 2019 through the close on June 26, 2020, and ending holdings as of that close. The market a trade happened on matters as much as the numbers. Only Cronos shares purchased or acquired on the NASDAQ or another public U.S. market are eligible, and only those should be reported; TSX and other non-U.S. purchases are not eligible and the form instructs you not to list them. Where your documentation does not state the market, the Claims Administrator will assume trades in U.S. dollars are U.S. trades and trades in another currency are not, and claimants bear the burden of establishing their right to a recovery. Report every purchase and every sale in the reporting window whether it made money or lost money, because failure to report all of them may result in rejection. Attach copies rather than originals, since nothing you submit is returned to you. Do not use a highlighter on the Claim Form or on any supporting document. File a separate Claim Form for each account instead of combining accounts. Joint owners must all sign, and a representative signing as executor, administrator, guardian, conservator, trustee or agent must state their capacity and provide evidence of authority. Expect the administrator to ask for further documentation if anything in your submission is unclear, and note that if your shares were held through a brokerage firm the claim is made by the beneficial owner of the shares.

What Happened?

Cronos Group Inc. is a cannabinoid company with operations in Canada and Israel and distribution in additional international markets. Court-appointed Lead Plaintiff Keith D. Norman alleged that Cronos and two senior executives — Michael Gorenstein, then Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jerry F. Barbato, then Chief Financial Officer — made false and misleading statements about the company's revenue as a result of improper revenue recognition on three 'round trip' transactions, which led to restatements reducing reported first-quarter and third-quarter 2019 revenue. The case is In re Cronos Group Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 2:20-cv-01310-ENV-JMW, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, before the Honorable Eric N. Vitaliano, and it asserts claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5, with control-person claims under Section 20(a) against the individuals. The litigation history is unusually long. The Court appointed Lead Plaintiff and Labaton as Lead Counsel on October 22, 2020, and the Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint followed on November 23, 2020. Before filing, Lead Counsel reviewed OSC and SEC filings, analyst reports, company statements and media reports, consulted cannabis-industry, accounting and damages experts, and interviewed former Cronos employees. Briefing on the motion to dismiss was complete in April 2021, and on November 11, 2023 the Court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, holding that the allegations did not adequately plead scienter under Section 10(b) and dismissing the Section 20(a) claims as a result. Lead Plaintiff moved for reconsideration on December 1, 2023 based on additional information from the SEC and OSC investigations, and on November 29, 2024 the Court granted that motion and permitted a further amended complaint. The Second Amended Class Action Complaint was filed January 10, 2025, Defendants served a motion to dismiss it on March 11, 2025, and that motion was still pending and undecided when the settlement was reached. Formal discovery had been stayed by statute under the PSLRA the entire time and had not begun. The parties engaged Robert Meyer of JAMS and held a full-day in-person mediation on May 16, 2025 without reaching agreement. The mediator made a formal proposal on May 19, 2025 of a $10 million payment with no admission of liability, both sides accepted it the same day, a confidential term sheet followed dated June 1, 2025, and the Stipulation was executed December 2, 2025. A separate proceeding over the same alleged misstatements is live in Canada. Harpreet Badesha v. Cronos Group Inc. et al., CV-20-00641990-00CP, was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 3, 2020 and originally named a longer list of Cronos directors, officers and employees. The Ontario Court denied leave and certification on June 28, 2021; the Court of Appeal for Ontario granted leave to proceed on September 22, 2022 and sent certification back; and on October 10, 2023 the Ontario Court certified a class covering secondary-market purchasers worldwide, including on the TSX and the NASDAQ, and denied Defendants' motion to dismiss the claims of NASDAQ purchasers on the ground that a U.S. court should decide them. The Ontario opt-out deadline passed on July 22, 2024 with thirty-two opt-outs representing 20,355 shares, and no trial date has been set. Discovery there is mostly complete, in contrast to the U.S. case. Every member of this U.S. Settlement Class is also a member of the Ontario certified class, and that is the source of the most consequential decision on this page. If the settlement is approved, it releases class members' claims — including their claims in the Ontario action — based on Cronos shares bought on the NASDAQ or another U.S. market during the class period, and extinguishes any entitlement to a future Ontario recovery on those shares. Claims based on TSX and other non-U.S. purchases are not released. The settlement's Effective Date itself depends on the Ontario Court amending its certified class definition to carve out U.S.-market purchases by Settlement Class Members, or granting equivalent relief. Ontario Class Counsel, Kalloghlian Myers LLP, which the Ontario Court appointed in October 2023 and which was not involved in the U.S. mediation, opposes the proposed settlement and objects to its approval, telling U.S. counsel that damages in the Ontario action could be much higher than $10 million and that the amount is insufficient for the release it buys. Any objection they file will be posted on the settlement website, and Cronos investors can reach them at cronos@kalloghlianmyers.com or (647) 969-4472. None of this is a finding against anyone. Defendants have denied and continue to deny all allegations of wrongdoing or fault, deny committing any act or omission giving rise to liability, and deny that Lead Plaintiff or the class suffered any loss attributable to their conduct; they settled to end the burden, expense, uncertainty and risk of further litigation, including the risk of class-wide litigation of the released claims in Ontario. The Court did not decide in favor of either side. Lead Plaintiff's stated reason for settling is the guaranteed cash recovery weighed against the pending motion to dismiss, the difficulty of proving the allegations and certifying a class, and the delay and risk of trial and appeals. The Settlement Hearing is set for November 19, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. ET, either remotely or in person in Courtroom 4 C S, United States Courthouse, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, NY 11201, and the notice warns the Court can change the date, the time or the format without sending another individual notice — check the settlement website before relying on it. Payments cannot begin until the Court grants final approval, the Effective Date arrives with any appeals resolved, and the administrator finishes processing claims. Defendants also have the option to terminate the settlement if a certain number of class members request exclusion.

How to File Your Claim

1. File the Claim Form through the official settlement website, CronosUSSecuritiesSettlement.com, administered by A.B. Data, Ltd. under the Court's supervision
2. the site also carries the long-form Notice, the Claim Form, the Stipulation and the court documents, and A.B. Data will mail a Claim Form to you if you call toll-free at (877) 226-4986. Filing is free and does not require hiring a lawyer. The Claim Form must be submitted online, or postmarked or received by mail, no later than November 9, 2026. The notice gives that date but no time of day and no time zone, so submit well before the end of the day. Mail goes to Cronos U.S. Securities Settlement, c/o A.B. Data, Ltd., P.O. Box 173088, Milwaukee, WI 53217. Pull your brokerage records for the whole reporting window before you start, because the form asks for more than just the eligible trades. It asks for total shares bought on the NASDAQ or another U.S. market and held at the opening of trading on May 9, 2019
3. each and every purchase and acquisition on a U.S. market from May 9, 2019 through March 30, 2020, listed chronologically with the date, the number of shares and the U.S.-dollar price per share excluding taxes, commissions and fees
4. the total shares purchased on a U.S. market during the PSLRA 90-day look-back window of March 31, 2020 through the close of trading on June 26, 2020
5. each and every sale on a U.S. market from May 9, 2019 through that June 26, 2020 close
6. and ending holdings as of that close. Every one of those five lines carries its own instruction to submit documentation. Report every transaction in the window whether it produced a profit or a loss, because failure to report all of them may result in rejection of your claim. Do not report TSX or other non-U.S. purchases on this form — they are not eligible and the form says they should not be listed. Mechanical rules that trip people up: file a separate Claim Form for each account rather than combining accounts on one form, attach copies only because nothing you send is returned to you, do not highlight the Claim Form or any supporting document, all joint owners must sign, and an executor, administrator, guardian, conservator or other representative signing on someone's behalf must state their capacity and furnish evidence of authority. The form is signed under penalty of perjury. Claimants with large numbers of transactions may request or be asked to submit their data as an electronic file, but that route still requires a manually signed paper Claim Form covering the accounts, and no electronic file counts as properly submitted until A.B. Data issues a written acknowledgment of receipt and acceptance. One earlier date matters more than the claim deadline for some investors: requests for exclusion and objections must be received by October 29, 2026, and an exclusion request must itself state the date, price and number of shares for every class-period purchase and sale on a U.S. market and be submitted with documentary proof of all class-period purchases. Exclusion cannot be requested by telephone.
7. Visit the official claim form: https://cronosussecuritiessettlement.com/

How Much Will I Actually Get?

Pro rata cash from the $10,000,000 fund. After deduction of Court-awarded attorneys' fees and Litigation Expenses, Notice and Administration Expenses, Taxes and any other fees or expenses the Court approves, the remaining Net Settlement Fund is divided among Authorized Claimants in proportion to each claimant's Recognized Claim — your Recognized Claim divided by the total Recognized Claims of all Authorized Claimants, multiplied by the Net Settlement Fund. There is a single payout path and nothing for a claimant to elect. Cronos publicly traded common stock bought or acquired on the NASDAQ or another public U.S. market during the class period is the only security eligible for a recovery under the Plan of Allocation, so unlike many securities settlements there are no separate option, warrant or note tiers to add together or weigh against each other. Stock bought or sold through the exercise of an option counts, with the exercise date as the purchase or sale date and the exercise price as the price. Lead Plaintiff's consulting damages expert estimates the average recovery at approximately $0.06 per eligible share before deduction of Court-approved fees and expenses, and approximately $0.04 per eligible share if the Court grants the fee and expense application in full, assuming every eligible investor files. Treat those as what the notice says they are: estimates and averages, not a per-share entitlement, and class members may recover more or less. THE $200,000 CAP COVERS LITIGATION EXPENSES ONLY — NOT ATTORNEYS' FEES, AND NOT THE SETTLEMENT AS A WHOLE. Lead Counsel will separately apply for attorneys' fees of up to 33% of the Settlement Fund, which is $3,300,000 plus accrued interest, so the two requests together can reach roughly $3.5 million of the $10 million fund before anything is distributed. Any fee the Court awards is divided between Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP, which takes at least 82.5%, and The Schall Law Firm, which takes up to 17.5%, under a fee-sharing agreement between them. Class members are not personally liable for any of it; whatever the Court approves comes out of the fund. A $10.00 FLOOR APPLIES AT THE END. The Net Settlement Fund is allocated only among Authorized Claimants whose prorated payment is $10.00 or greater; if your prorated payment calculates to less than $10.00 it is excluded from the calculation and no distribution is made to you. At the notice's estimated $0.04 net per eligible share that implies on the order of 250 or more compensable shares before any check is issued. Two further caps bind only part of the class rather than the settlement overall. Per-share Recognized Loss can never exceed the alleged artificial inflation set out in Table 1 of the notice, which is $2.32 for purchases from May 9, 2019 through February 23, 2020, $1.74 from February 24 through March 2, 2020, $1.16 from March 3 through March 17, 2020, $0.69 from March 18 through March 30, 2020, and $0.00 from March 31, 2020 onward — the March 18 figure was cut by half because the price movement that day lacked statistical significance under certain scenarios. And for anyone still holding at the close of trading on June 26, 2020, the statutory PSLRA 90-day look-back caps the Recognized Loss at the purchase price minus $6.11, the mean closing price of Cronos common stock over March 31 through June 26, 2020; shares sold inside that look-back window are measured against the running average closing price in Table 2 of the notice instead. If a balance remains at least six months after the initial distribution, Lead Counsel will redistribute it among Authorized Claimants who cashed their checks where that is feasible and economical, repeating until it no longer is; any final remainder that cannot economically be reallocated goes to the Council of Institutional Investors or another non-sectarian not-for-profit organization the Court approves.

Last reviewed: September 25, 2026 | Information verified from court records and official settlement documents.

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