Massachusetts Cannabis Receiverships, 2021 to 2026: What Fourteen Cases Show
Between November 2021 and August 2026, Massachusetts courts appointed receivers in at least fourteen state-court proceedings involving Massachusetts cannabis businesses.
Grey Birch Associates read the dockets, the entered orders, the receivers' reports, and the hearing records in each of them. Twelve are still open.
This page is the short version.
The full study, Receivership in the Massachusetts Cannabis Industry: A Case History, 2021 to 2026 (Second Edition, October 2026), runs 49 pages with endnotes, and it's free.
Docket information current through October 15, 2026. The figures on this page come from the Second Edition and are updated with each new edition. Authentic copies match this SHA-256: 2022b3decffab6657cf150ee6662ca456fed5cbe61dc5df3c5dbc42aa4d00a06
Key Numbers
Fourteen proceedings. Twelve were still open on October 15, 2026.
Filing to appointment: 1 to 31 days in ten cases, two to four and a half months in three, and two and a half years in one.
Appointment to court-approved sale: roughly 6 to 12 months, in the four cases with a court-approved sale of a licensed business.
Sale order to closing: 147 days in Ermont; 247 to 253 days for the two DMA stores.
Commission change-of-ownership decisions in these cases: four. All four were approved.
Competitive auctions: all three beat the stalking-horse (opening) bid, by 27% to 77%.
Receivership fee structures in the entered appointment orders: six, from no fee application required to a $175,000 cap.
The one case that has run the full course, Ermont: a $13MM sale, unsecured creditors at 54 cents on the dollar, and discharge at month 26.
Common Questions
How many Massachusetts cannabis businesses have gone into receivership?
At least fourteen.
That counts each case in which a Massachusetts court appointed a receiver over a Massachusetts cannabis licensee or its affiliates, and several cover more than one licensed entity. Petitions that never produced an appointment, such as Haze of Grafton (denied in 2026), are not counted.
And the count may still be incomplete.
Can a Massachusetts cannabis company file for bankruptcy?
Not in practice.
Federal bankruptcy remains closed to adult-use cannabis businesses. Whether a medical-only operator could now file has not been tested in any reported decision we located.
State-court receivership has been the principal court-supervised path to a going-concern sale. It isn't the only one. A lender can foreclose on non-license collateral under Article 9, members of an LLC can seek a court-supervised winding up, and Commission regulations allow an assignment for the benefit of creditors with Commission approval.
How long does a cannabis receivership take in Massachusetts?
Three clocks run.
Filing to appointment took 1 to 31 days in ten of the fourteen cases. Appointment to a court-approved sale took roughly 6 to 12 months in the four cases that reached one.
Sale order to closing took about five to eightmonths in the two that have closed, most of it in the regulatory approval process.
Who picks the receiver in Massachusetts?
The petitioner proposes. The court decides.
In ten of the fourteen cases the court appointed the proposed receiver, usually on an assented or negotiated order. In three of the other four it appointed someone else, and in the fourth the motion proposed no one.
There's also a Commission list of pre-approved court appointees. Pre-approval isn't an appointment.
Does the Cannabis Control Commission have to approve the buyer?
Yes.
A Massachusetts cannabis license can't be transferred without Commission approval. Every change-of-ownership decision the Commission has issued in these cases has been an approval: four decisions of record.
Twelve of the fourteen cases remain open, so that's an observation from the completed transactions, not a performance rate.
What do creditors recover?
One case has finished.
Ermont ran from complaint to discharge: a $21.8MM defaulted loan, a $13MM going-concern sale, priority taxes paid, and unsecured creditors recovering 54 cents on the dollar from a fixed $625,000 pool the secured lender agreed to fund.
In the three competitive auctions, the winning bid beat the stalking-horse (opening) bid by 27% to 77%. In Revolutionary Clinics, the Leominster facility was sold by negotiated contract rather than at auction, and the sale closed at $575,000, 15% above the signed contract price.
What does a cannabis receiver cost in Massachusetts?
It depends on the order.
Fee structures come from the appointment order, and the entered orders show six different ones. Fee totals are mostly not public, because the most common order requires no fee application and in several cases the receiver's reports are impounded.
In four of the five orders that waive fee applications, the secured lender reviews the receiver's budget, and the receiver must stay within 10% of it.
The fourteen cases
Each case is told in full in the study, with docket numbers, dates, order terms, and endnotes.
How the study was built
From primary sources: Massachusetts Superior Court dockets, entered orders, motions, receivers' reports, affidavits, and stipulations in the fourteen cases; the Commission's public orders and meeting records; Canadian court filings in the AYR and Cannabist proceedings; and, where noted, court hearing audio.
Where the record is silent, incomplete, or impounded, the study says so instead of estimating. Operator-level sales and revenue figures are excluded as a matter of firm policy.
This page and the study contain information obtained from public records and publicly available sources. The information has not been independently verified and should not be relied upon as a complete or definitive account.
Nothing here is legal, financial, or investment advice. Grey Birch Associates is not a law firm.
About Grey Birch Associates
Grey Birch Associates is a Massachusetts receivership and turnaround firm focused exclusively on the cannabis industry. Co-founder Jeremy Bromberg is a Cannabis Control Commission pre-approved court appointee (registration CA156924); on August 12, 2026 the Commission approved Grey Birch MA Associates LLC as an affiliated/engaged entity, and Carl Giannone and Christine Cicon as affiliated/engaged individuals, on that registration.
Questions about one of these cases, or one that's headed to court? Talk to Jeremy Bromberg, Carl Giannone, or Christine Cicon. Contact us.
