Published
September 18, 2026
Investors who acquired Wayland Group Corp. or Maricann Group shares, units or warrants on or after December 13, 2017 and still held some or all of them at the close of trading on August 2, 2019 may qualify to claim a pro rata share of an $8 million CAD Ontario securities class action settlement. Claims close September 30, 2026, and bank or brokerage records are required.
Current Status
Claims are open, and this is the last stretch of the window. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the settlement on March 19, 2026, after a hearing held on March 9, and the administrator has since extended the claims bar deadline from August 20, 2026 to September 30, 2026. That extension is the final date the administrator has announced. Claim forms go to Berger Montague (Canada) PC, which the court appointed as administrator as well as class counsel, through the secure online claims system operated for it by Nuvo Claims Inc. No payment date has been announced: the Plan of Allocation requires the administrator to bring a further motion for authorization before any money moves, and the court has not been asked for that authorization yet. Anyone who traded Wayland or Maricann securities in the class period should pull their statements now, because supporting documentation is required for every claim and filing is free.Free settlement alerts
Get notified when new class actions open to claims
Join thousands of readers who get the latest class action settlements you may qualify for — delivered straight to your inbox.
Status
Claims Open
settlement approved March 19, 2026 · deadline extended from August 20
Claim Deadline
September 30, 2026
extended by the administrator from the original August 20, 2026 claims bar deadline · no timezone is specified in the notice
Estimated Payout
Pro rata, capped per share
estimate only · no per-share figure has been published · the Plan of Allocation caps recovery at $0.74, $0.17 or $0.03 per share depending on when the securities were bought and sold, with a $0.03 floor · nothing is distributed below $100
Proof Required
Yes
bank or brokerage statements, or other proof acceptable to the administrator, showing the securities bought during the class period and held afterward
What Changed Recently?
Three things have moved since the settlement was signed on January 22, 2026, and all three matter to anyone still deciding whether to file.The court approved the settlement on March 19, 2026. Justice E.M. Morgan heard the approval motion on March 9 and released his endorsement ten days later, approving the Settlement Agreement, the Plan of Allocation, class counsel fees and honoraria for the representative plaintiffs. His reasons record that no Class Member objected to the settlement.
The Plan of Allocation was then amended. On April 28, 2026, after class counsel wrote to the court about a potential for confusion between two paragraphs of the plan, the judge issued a supplementary endorsement rewriting paragraphs 3 and 4(iii). The amendment inserted the per-share recovery caps described below and made explicit that buckets (i) and (iii) can never recover more than bucket (ii). Counsel for the settling defendants told the court they had no submissions on the change.
Then the deadline moved. The original claims bar deadline was August 20, 2026. In August the administrator extended it to September 30, 2026, a step the Plan of Allocation permits class counsel and the administrator to take jointly where it would not disrupt the administration and is in the best interests of the Class.
None of this is a finding against anyone. The settling defendants deny the allegations and deny any wrongdoing or liability, and the endorsement states that the Settlement Agreement is not an admission of liability on the part of any defendant.
What the Case Alleged
Wayland Group Corp. was a licensed Ontario cannabis producer. Until January 7, 2019 it was known as Maricann Group Inc., and its securities traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbols MARI and later WAYL, on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under 75M, and over the counter in the United States under MRRCF.The plaintiffs in the three actions alleged that the defendants made misrepresentations, or failed to disclose a material change or material fact, concerning Wayland, its operations and its financial status between December 13, 2017 and August 2, 2019 — including in connection with the build-out of its cannabis production facility at Langton, Ontario, and in connection with its chief executive officer, Benjamin Ward. The claims were brought under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, and in February 2026 the court granted leave under section 138.8(1) of Ontario's Securities Act to proceed with the statutory secondary-market claims.
Three public correction dates anchor the case and, later, the payout formula: April 23, 2019, May 6, 2019 and August 2, 2019.
These allegations were never tested at trial. The settling defendants deny them, and no court has found any of them liable.
Who Qualifies?
The Class, as certified for settlement purposes on February 4, 2026, covers all persons and entities other than Excluded Persons, wherever they may reside or be domiciled, who purchased or otherwise acquired common shares, units and warrants of Wayland Group Corp. and Maricann Group Corp. on or after December 13, 2017 and held some or all of those securities as of the close of trading on August 2, 2019.A few points decide most eligibility questions:
- There is no residency requirement. The class definition reaches holders wherever they live, even though the actions are Ontario proceedings and payments are made in Canadian dollars.
- Warrants and units count, not just common shares. The Plan of Allocation notes that the maximum recovery on warrants may ultimately be reduced by the same percentage discount the warrants carried against the common shares on each public correction date.
- You had to still be holding something at the close on August 2, 2019. "Some or all" is the operative phrase — a partial sale earlier in the window does not put you outside the Class, but a complete exit before that close does.
- Receiving notice of the settlement does not make you eligible or guarantee a payment. Nobody administering the settlement can see your trading history, which is why a claim form and documentation are required.
How Much Can You Get?
The settling defendants, or their insurers and reinsurers, are paying $8,000,000 CAD into an interest-bearing account. That amount is inclusive of all interest, fees, taxes and disbursements claimed by the Class. Out of it come class counsel fees — approved at 30% of the settlement, or $2,400,000, plus disbursements and HST — along with the administrator's expenses, taxes and a $5,000 honorarium approved for each of the four representative plaintiffs. What remains is the compensation fund.The fund is divided by the total Qualified Securities of all authorized claimants to produce a figure the plan calls the Damages Per Qualified Security. Your pro rata distribution is that figure multiplied by your own Qualified Securities — and then capped, under the April 2026 amendment, according to which of three buckets your securities fall into:
- Up to $0.17 per share — securities purchased between December 13, 2017 and April 23, 2019 and sold after April 23 but before May 6, 2019.
- Up to $0.74 per share — securities purchased between December 13, 2017 and May 6, 2019 and held after May 6, 2019. This is the only bucket that can exceed $0.17.
- Up to $0.03 per share — securities purchased on the U.S. markets between May 7 and August 2, 2019 and held past August 2, 2019.
No per-share estimate has been published, and none of the three figures above is a payment amount — they are ceilings. What a claimant actually receives depends on the size of the compensation fund after deductions and on how many Qualified Securities are claimed in total, neither of which is known until the claims bar deadline passes. Payments are strictly pro rata, so a heavily subscribed fund scales everyone down.
Two floors are worth knowing before you spend time on a small claim. No distribution is made in respect of any amount under $100. And if a payment is not deposited or accepted within 45 days of being sent, the claimant forfeits it, the money returns to the pool for other claimants, and no cheque is reissued.
What Proof Is Required?
Documentation is mandatory. The Plan of Allocation defines supporting documentation as copies of bank or brokerage statements, or any other proof acceptable to the administrator, that reflect how many of the securities were purchased during the class period and held afterward. A claim form arriving without it can be refused outright.There is no notice ID, claim ID or PIN standing between you and the form — this is a documentation gate rather than a credential gate, so an eligible investor who never received a notice can still file. What you need are the records showing the trades: purchase dates, quantities and the holdings that carried through the correction dates. If the records are not in your files, ask the institution that holds the account for copies before the deadline rather than after it.
If your paperwork is disorganized enough that the administrator cannot readily work out the size of your claim, the plan lets it reject the claim form in its entirety, with a referral to the referee as your recourse. Where a claim form has only minor omissions or errors, the administrator may correct them if the information is readily available, and where it can it will give a claimant thirty days' written notice to fix a deficiency.
What Is the Deadline?
The claims bar deadline is September 30, 2026. The original date was August 20, 2026; the administrator extended it under the provision of the Plan of Allocation that lets class counsel and the administrator agree to an extension where doing so would not adversely affect the efficient administration of the settlement and is in the best interests of the Class.The published notices give a date and no time of day, so no cut-off hour or timezone is stated here. A Class Member who does not file a claim form and the required documentation by that date will not participate in the distribution — and will still be bound by the releases, because the opt-out window closed on March 2, 2026.
How Do You Take Action?
File through the official case page maintained by class counsel and administrator Berger Montague (Canada) PC, Berger Montague — Wayland Group Corp., which carries the claim form, the settlement agreement, the Plan of Allocation, the approved notices in English and French, and the court's settlement and supplementary endorsements. The claim form is submitted through the secure online claims system the administrator operates with Nuvo Claims Inc. Filing is free and you do not need a lawyer.In practice that means gathering your statements for the full class period first, reporting the securities you bought and the securities you still held at each correction date, and uploading the documentation with the form. The claims system accepts submissions in English and French.
What Happens Next?
After the claims bar deadline passes and the review process is complete, the administrator brings a motion asking the court for authorization to make distributions, filing the distribution list in a form that protects claimants' privacy. No distribution can be made before that authorization, and the court may also authorize interim distributions.A claimant who disagrees with the administrator's decision on eligibility or on the number of Qualified Securities can elect a Reference within fifteen days of the decision, on payment of a $150 deposit, and an independent referee — the court approved Eliezer Karp for the role — reviews it in a summary written procedure. The referee's decision is final and there is no appeal from it.
If money remains in the account 180 days after the distribution, whether from tax refunds, uncashed cheques or anything else, the administrator allocates it among claimants on the distribution list up to the limit of each person's actual loss. Anything still left after everyone has been paid to that limit goes cy-près, to a charity or non-profit selected by class counsel and approved by the court; the plan names Osgoode Hall Law School's Investor Protection Clinic.
One part of the litigation is not over. The settlement does not include Benjamin Allan Ward, Wayland's former chief executive, who is in default and the subject of a separate motion for default judgment, and the Wayland Action continues against him. The approval order bars claims for contribution or indemnity against the released parties, while expressly preserving Ward's ability to raise defences, including that he is liable only for the proportion of damage for which he is directly responsible.
Sources and Verification
• Official case page, claim form and settlement documents — Berger Montague — Wayland Group Corp., class counsel and court-appointed administrator• Notice of Settlement Approval (short form) and Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing (long form, English and French), approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice — the source for the class definition, the $8,000,000 CAD settlement amount, the claims process and the objection and opt-out deadlines — the long-form notice is embedded below
• Plan of Allocation and Distribution Protocol — the source for the definitions of Qualified Securities and supporting documentation, the pro rata calculation, the $100 distribution floor, the 45-day payment rule, the Reference procedure and the cy-près recipient
• Stajic v. Wayland Group Corp., 2026 ONSC 1680 (settlement endorsement of Justice E.M. Morgan, March 19, 2026), and the Supplementary Settlement Endorsement of April 28, 2026 amending paragraphs 3 and 4(iii) of the Plan of Allocation
• Stajic v. Wayland Group Corp., 2026 ONSC 647 (certification for settlement purposes and leave to proceed, February 4, 2026)
• Court files CV-21-00665194-00CP, CV-22-00687490-00CP and CV-23-00693650-00CP, Ontario Superior Court of Justice at Toronto
• Administrator's news release of August 14, 2026 announcing the extension of the claims bar deadline to September 30, 2026
Questions
Do I have to live in Canada to file a claim?
No. The certified Class covers all persons and entities other than Excluded Persons, wherever they may reside or be domiciled, who acquired the securities on or after December 13, 2017 and held some or all of them as of the close of trading on August 2, 2019. The actions were brought in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and distributions are made in Canadian dollars, but the class definition carries no residency requirement.
The class definition says I had to hold through August 2, 2019, so why does the Plan of Allocation pay for shares sold in 2019?
Because the definition asks you to have held some or all of your securities at that close, not all of them. An investor who kept part of a position and sold the rest earlier is still a Class Member, and the Plan of Allocation then prices each tranche separately: shares bought during the class period and sold between April 24 and May 6, 2019 carry a maximum recovery of $0.17 per share, while shares held past May 6, 2019 carry a maximum of $0.74. An investor who disposed of the entire position before the close on August 2, 2019 falls outside the Class. The administrator decides which of your securities are Qualified Securities from the records you file.
Why is the maximum recovery for U.S. over-the-counter purchases only $0.03 a share?
The court's supplementary endorsement of April 28, 2026 records class counsel's explanation. After May 6, 2019 Wayland's securities were trading at roughly $0.24 per share on the U.S. over-the-counter market, and after the final Public Correction Date on August 2, 2019 the price fell to $0.21. The court accepted that the three-cent difference is what that tranche of Qualified Securities is worth under the plan.
Is Benjamin Ward part of this settlement?
No. The Settlement Agreement expressly excludes the defendant Benjamin Allan Ward, Wayland's former chief executive. The court's endorsement records that he is in default and the subject of a separate motion for default judgment, and that the Wayland Action continues against him. Nothing about the settlement resolves, or decides, the claims against him.
Is there a minimum payment?
Yes. The Plan of Allocation directs that no distribution be made in respect of any amount under $100, and claimants below that figure are left off the Distribution List for those claims. Payments are made in Canadian dollars by e-transfer, bank transfer or cheque. A payment that is not deposited or accepted within 45 days is forfeited and becomes available for redistribution to other claimants, and no cheques are reissued.
What can I do if the administrator rejects or reduces my claim?
You can elect a Reference. Deliver a written election to the administrator within fifteen days of receiving its decision, setting out the basis for your disagreement and attaching any relevant documents you have not already sent, together with a certified cheque or money order for $150 payable to the administrator. An independent referee reviews the file in a summary procedure, usually in writing, and the decision is final with no appeal from it. The $150 is returned if the referee disturbs the administrator's decision and is added to the compensation fund if it does not.
Official Settlement Notice
The long-form notice below was approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and issued ahead of the March 2026 approval hearing, so it describes the settlement as proposed and carries the objection and opt-out dates that have since passed. The settlement was approved on March 19, 2026, and the claims bar deadline is now September 30, 2026.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$8,000,000 CAD
inclusive of all interest, fees, taxes and disbursements claimed by the Class · held in an interest-bearing account
Case Title
Stajic v. Wayland Group Corp.
heard together with Stajic v. Langille and Bordeleau-Tassile v. Canaccord Genuity Corp.
Case Number
CV-21-00665194-00CP · CV-22-00687490-00CP · CV-23-00693650-00CP
Court
Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Toronto — Hon. Justice E.M. Morgan
Class Period
December 13, 2017 – August 2, 2019
common shares, units and warrants acquired on or after December 13, 2017 and held, in whole or in part, at the close of trading on August 2, 2019
Final Approval Hearing
Held March 9, 2026 — approved March 19, 2026
Stajic v. Wayland Group Corp., 2026 ONSC 1680 · Plan of Allocation amended by supplementary endorsement April 28, 2026
Administrator
Berger Montague (Canada) PC
also Class Counsel · online claims are processed through Nuvo Claims Inc.
Official Website
Berger Montague — Wayland Group Corp.
