CannTrust Holdings Inc. has officially responded to Health Canada’s finding that the cannabis company ran afoul of its regulations, including unlicensed cultivation at its Ontario greenhouse.

The company says that on July 17 it filed a response to the regulator’s non-compliance report, one day before the July 18 deadline, and it now awaits Health Canada’s response.

CannTrust also says it has appointed U.S. sports executive Robert Marcovitch as chairman of its previously announced special committee tasked with investigating the matter.

Marcovitch is a CannTrust board director and has previously served as president and chief executive of K2 sports, and chief executive of The Coleman Outdoor Company.

The company said Monday the special committee’s “investigation and deliberations are ongoing.”

The committee “takes these issues very seriously” and is committed to working with Health Canada to bring CannTrust into compliance, Marcovitch said.

“Although we want to move as quickly as possible, we are mindful of the critical need to be thorough,” he said in a news release. “We are determined to identify the root causes for all non-compliance issues, to take appropriate actions to address and remediate any issues with the Company’s compliance culture and to restore trust in the Company.”

CannTrust said the other members of the special committee were board directors Shawna Page, Mark Dawber, and John Kaden, each of whom are independent of company management.

Earlier this month, the licensed producer said that Health Canada notified it of its finding that CannTrust grew cannabis in five unlicensed rooms at its Pelham, Ont. facility and that employees provided inaccurate information to federal regulators.

CannTrust said the growing in these unlicensed rooms took place between October 2018 and March 2019, before the licences were issued for each of the five rooms in April 2019.

Health Canada has put on hold 5,200 kilograms of CannTrust’s inventory and the licensed producer voluntarily put 7,500 kilograms of products linked to the unlicensed rooms.

Later on July 11, CannTrust put a voluntary hold on all sale and shipments of its cannabis products as a precaution as Health Canada investigated its Vaughan facility.