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A judge this month awarded a preliminary $17.9 million settlement to a San Francisco-based global cannabis brand, marking the latest twist in a contentious dispute between the company's founders and its own investors.
The war has led Cookies and its early investors to sue each other in court, with both sides seeking more than $100 million in damages. The investors, who also run a chain of numerous Cookies retail locations, have accused founder Gilbert Anthony Milam Jr., known as “Berner,” and his co-founders of fraud. Milam, for his part, has described the group as “shark investors” trying to take control of his brand.
A private administrative judge in San Francisco initially sided almost entirely with “Berner” and his executives on February 14, 2025. Although the judge agreed to much lower damages than Cookies had originally sought, awarding about $17.9 million in damages plus attorneys’ fees; Milam and his colleagues had sought about $120 million…LOL
The award is subject to review or appeal before it is finalized in April 2025. Cookies’ lawyers said in a court filing last week that the interim award is unlikely to be significantly changed…. Who knows, maybe it’s a bluff…? The lawyers wrote that the arbitrator’s interim award is “a clear victory for Cookies” and that “the issuance of the final award” against the investors “is clearly imminent.” Really??? We’ll see what the attackers’ cards are in April… or maybe even later, depending on the appeals.
Roger L. Scott, a lawyer representing the investors, Cookies Retail LLC, said in an email that the arbitrator's interim award was not binding and vowed to continue to defend their case. So it's far from a done deal when you know the names of the investors.
Cookies Retail LLC, was created in 2010, first in clothing and then in the cannabis market, designating a branch of the company focused on physical stores and investments in the cannabis sector. It is this entity that is more in conflict with certain investors, particularly in the context of lawsuits related to business practices and asset management. (Which is normal Cookies really started after this association in 2018) Core investors 1212 Ventures (Douglas Rosenberg). https://www.cbinsights.com/company/cookies-retail-enterprises
Cookies SF, founded by Berner and Jayden "Jigga" in 2011, is the entity that launched the brand in San Francisco, specializing in cannabis cultivation and the creation of a clothing brand. Core investors Mesh Ventures (Douglas Rosenberg). https://www.cbinsights.com/company/cookies-1
« “The Superior Court remains the proper forum for this litigation, and Cookies Retail, LLC will continue to raise the issue of impropriety in Cookies’ actions and the interim order with the Superior Court in the near future. It will also cooperate with any investigation related to Cookies that may be underway,” he said.
The final judgment decision will unfortunately not be made public. However, the dispute is related to a lawsuit filed in January 2023 by the same investors. Last week, Cookies submitted the interim award as evidence in a motion to stay litigation in that court case until the verdict is concluded.
The judge's 48-page ruling is a vindication of sorts for the Cookies SF founders, but it also illustrates how Berner's early business decisions led him to struggle for control of his company with his investors, including billionaire Orange County venture capitalist Vinny Smith.
According to the interim sentence, the investors stated in an email that they planned to take control of Cookies through a "blue wedding" and not a "red wedding" as in Game of Thrones, which is a reference to the "violent destruction of one family by another under the cover of the conviviality of a wedding celebration," according to the prosecutor's statement of facts.
Parker Berling, Cookies chairman and a named defendant in the 2023 civil lawsuit, declined to answer questions related to the case but celebrated the tentative award.
The legal charges boiled down to largely complicated arguments over licensing fees and venture capital fundraising, with both sides launching enough legal attacks to threaten the future of the brand. The investors were led by Brandon Johnson, a cannabis entrepreneur who runs a chain of Cookies stores, as well as other cannabis brands… According to the statement of facts in the arbitration award, Johnson received an investment from Gron Ventures, a limited liability company that receives funding from Smith’s venture capital fund, to operate each Cookies cannabis store and select future store owners.
It's unclear how close Cookies is to Johnson's company or what will happen to the Cookies store network, which is owned by various investors. Cookies has already closed some of its most famous stores, including its Haight Street store in San Francisco and its Melrose store in Los Angeles, though it has since opened a new, smaller location on Melrose Avenue.
There also appears to be a separate dispute with an investor named Ned Fussell, who has accused Cookies and Berner of using the popular cannabis brand to “intimidate others into paying them millions of dollars in personal benefits and bribes,” according to an ongoing court case in Los Angeles. Berling did not respond to a question about Fussell’s case or the brand’s future with Johnson’s company.
What do you think about all this?
Cookies deserves to be in the category of big guys who only think about money? or the side that Berner tries to show by pretending to be the sole owner of all this and supposedly close and respectful of his collaborators?
The Sticky Crew tells you what they think about all this:
Basically Berner simply created a brand with his grower buddy Jigga. At first Berner made Cherry Kush t-shirts to launch a “brand” and then they started using the legendary name of the Californian Girl Scout Cookies. They had great ideas for sure and created a great logo recognized worldwide inspired by this genetics “G.S.C” to base their marketing.
Berner and Jigga have always claimed to have had the agreement of the official creator of the G.S.C. in order to use the name and appropriate it… It is still necessary that it is the true creator of the strain who gave his “seeds” to the two acolytes… Basically the G.S.C. is a “Clone Only” genetics. Which means that only one mother plant was bred by the creator and that all the seeds coming from this strain are therefore false, not stabilized or herma..
They quickly understood that having a nice logo and good looks would not be enough to get them where they wanted to end up. Berner's dream was to become internationally recognized, so he had to partner with big fish, like Douglas Rosenberg, founder of Cookies sf + Cookies Retail, whom he always wanted to leave in the shadows by pretending to be the one and only owner. You have to wonder where these millions fell from without the DEA investigating him. He did not take them out himself, they affiliated with lawyers in order to set up their business and partnered with big guys like Terrascend in order to make their licenses. If we understand correctly, the investors are directly the owners of the cookie shops (example Cookies Retails which has 33 shops), they protected themselves as best they could in order to pretend to be the only owners of cookies. And he says this in Cannabis Mania "we must tattoo our bodies with our logo so that the world knows who it belongs to"
In our eyes he would not be much without these investors... like everyone else that said... The competition and the market itself is so unstable that to get to this level you necessarily need people behind it. By opening the door to the big fish and spitting on the entire cannabis industry. He let the wolves into the sheepfold and now hopes to tame them to protect his sheep.... It seems to me to be an extraordinary challenge... Especially since Berner is only a piece of meat compared to these wolves. Concerned about Cookies? No, rather for Berner directly.. We think that the Cookies brand is only at the beginning of its peak... And the problem is... But will it be done with Berner??? Cookies is by far not the largest cannabis company in the world, what are their real objectives??
The verdict will be given sooner or later...
Another idea that could be possible is that all this is a masquerade in order to hide the truth. That Berner plays on it to enhance the claims that he is the one and only owner of Cookies, which allows him to keep this status of young self-entrepreneur who has succeeded in this market. Which is currently blocking their peak because many major players in the industry point the finger at Cookies and its investors for using Berner as a simple puppet and wanting to control the total cannabis market.
