Cannim International, a cannabis-growing company in the United States, filed for bankruptcy last month. The administrators were called to sort through Cannim’s assets to see if they could find millions to pay its creditors.
Legal challenges to claim ownership of what remains of Cannim are increasing as details about the questionable financial handling that led to the collapse of the firm continue to surface.
Jade Proudman, the founder and former CEO of Savage Cabbage, acquired by Cannim in 2023, has now been awarded more than £137,000 after an employment tribunal ruled that she was dismissed in breach of contract without notice.
Proudman said MEDCAN24 The attempts by the plaintiff to contact John Worton (executive chairman of Cannim Group, and director at Savage Cabbage) about this judgment were not answered, so she took personal action to enforce it in Australia.
Cannim’s creditors owed A$28.9m (excluding Proudman’s disputed claim of $7.9m) now depend on a web increasingly complex competing interests: administrators overseeing Australian entities, secured creditor Finstro appointed receivers now controlling trading, UK companies that are outside the administration’s purview and potential buyers doing due diligence.
The court
Southampton Employment Tribunal was the venue for this two-day session, which took place 26-27th November 2025. Judge K Richardson presided. Proudman appeared for herself while Worton represented Savage Cabbage Limited.
The tribunal judge had moved the day before, on November 21, to remove Worton as an individual defendant. This was opposed by Proudman. It meant that Worton would not be liable in an unfair dismissal claim, since Savage Cabbage, her employer technically, and not Worton, himself, could not have been held responsible.
Savage Cabbage terminated Proudman’s employment on September 4, 2024, for breaching her contract. The company claimed she had violated Clause 7, which prohibited holding ‘another business interest’ without ‘advance written agreement,’ by maintaining a 75% shareholding and directorship in Little Fish Labs Limited, a functional nutrition company.
Proudman had sent Cannim Group letters in August and July 2024, alleging that the share purchase agreement of 2023 was not being followed and warning insolvency proceedings in case funding wasn’t provided to Setala Limited.
Worton admitted Proudman was given no opportunity to contest the dismissal or appeal, and ‘very frankly conceded that this was not a fair procedure.’
Richardson, Employment Judge, ruled that Cannim’s ex-CEO had made investments in the company before signing the employment contract, in September of 2023. Richardson also accepted that evidence proved that Cannim was aware that her participation was known before contract signature.
“It makes no commercial sense…to put her in a situation where as soon as she executed the contract of employment she was effectively in breach of its terms,” the judge said.
The tribunal dismissed Proudman’s alternate claim that her dismissal was in response to her threatening legal action for insolvency. It noted that the dismissal occurred more than one month after these letters, and that Proudman’s own complaint did not make such an allegation.
Proudman, who has previously told us the ordeal has driven her to the brink of bankruptcy, was awarded total compensation of £137,115.66, a sum accruing interest of 8% per annum if unpaid from December 04.
Though providing legal vindication for Proudman, recovering the award from the company she founded, now ‘borderline insolvent’, is another matter.
To use the standard enforcement mechanisms such as County Court Enforcement, informing bailiffs or charging orders against a business with active trading activities or assets, it is necessary to have assets.
Administrators of the Australian parent companies have indicated they have ‘no oversight’ of the UK entities, leaving Savage Cabbage and its sister company Setala Limited outside the formal insolvency proceedings underway in Australia. Companies House shows that both UK firms are still listed as active, with no obvious means of satisfying the judgement debt.
According to UK law she can pursue the company using standard enforcement methods, but the judgement is rendered worthless if there are no assets that the company could recover.
Proudman telling MEDCAN24 It is because of this that she has considered pursuing Worton directly under Australian Corporations law. She argues that his alleged inability to perform UK directorship obligations while the companies are still operating constitutes Director Misconduct under the Corporations Act.
Proudman stated that “because the company can’t seem to settle the judgement, and because John Worton as director made the decision to remove me from my position as both a director as well as an employee, without any notice to the other parties, this has caused financial hardship,” he said.