Metrc, the nation’s leading seed-to-sale tracking software provider, is “participating in a conspiracy” that allows unchecked “illegal interstate” marijuana sales, a former company executive is claiming in a federal whistleblower lawsuit.
Marcus Estes, who worked as an executive vice president at Florida-based Metrc for about a year, alleged in a lawsuit filed on April 4 in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the company fired him after he shared what he believed was “evidence that Metrc was violating California and federal law, and enabling others to violate California and federal law.”
Among Estes’ claims is that Metrc does not identify questionable activity in its data to regulators despite its $40 million-a-year contract with California requiring the company to “flag irregularities.”
The lawsuit seeks damages and attorney fees.
Metrc responds to ‘campaign of retaliation’
Metrc, which is the chosen seed-to-sale vendor in 20 U.S. cannabis markets, has yet to respond to Estes’ claims in court, according to records.
But in a statement to MJBizDaily on Thursday, Metrc said that “while normally we would not comment on ongoing litigation, these claims are so baseless that they warrant a response.”
“This former employee was let go due to performance issues,” the statement continued, “and, in response, he engaged in a retaliatory campaign against the company that required Metrc to take active steps to protect its systems and customers.
“This lawsuit is just a continuation of this former employee’s campaign of retaliation, and the falseness of these claims will be proven in court.”
Estes is also the defendant in a separate but related employment lawsuit brought by Metrc.
In that case, filed in May 2024 in Florida, Metrc is seeking the return of a $100,000 signing bonus it paid Estes after acquiring his software company, Chroma Signet, in April 2023.
That case is currently scheduled to go to trial in the fall after mediation late last year ended in an “impasse,” according to court records.
What’s not in dispute between the two parties is that Estes joined Metrc after its April 2023 acquisition of Chroma Signet, which developed “open source barcode labelling software” that was later incorporated into Metrc’s Retail ID product.
Retail ID allows end users such as cannabis consumers to scan a QR code and “instantaneously verify its history from seed to sale,” according to Metrc.
Metrc is best known for its proprietary radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that cannabis industry workers must scan with a handheld device to monitor the tagged goods’ location on the supply chain.
Suit claims Metrc product ‘widely disliked’
In the months after Metrc’s acquisition of Chroma Signet, Estes learned that the tags are “widely disliked by the cannabis industry because of their high cost, plastic waste, and perceived inutility,” according to his suit against the company.
Estes claims in his lawsuit that Metrc executives, including James Daley, the company’s vice president of product management, dismissed his concerns and told him that “’flagging irregularities ‘was not our job.’”
After that encounter and a separate meeting with Metrc’s general counsel, Estes claims the company “began to freeze (him) out,” including excluding him from “meetings regarding Retail ID” as well as the product’s launch at MJBizCon 2024.
Shortly after Metrc fired him in March 2024, the company approached him to sign a release indemnifying the company from any employment claims.
In return, Metrc would not try to recover the signing bonus, according to the suit.
Metrc filed the Florida employment claim seeking to recover the $100,000 bonus shortly thereafter, records show.
Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.
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