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Alexandra Mitretodis

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Competition class actions are often sparked by regulatory or criminal investigations, especially when there are admissions of anti-competitive conduct or guilty pleas.

In the recent Jensen decision, the Federal Court of Canada considered when the mere existence of an investigation can support certification, and what is required for a foreign investigation to satisfy the “some basis in fact” standard.Continue Reading Can Foreign Investigations Establish Some Basis in Fact of an Alleged Conspiracy?

Double Ticketing

Canadian competition law prohibits businesses putting two prices on one product and charging the higher of the two prices.

This concept of double ticketing was first introduced into Canadian law in 1975 to address stores listing two different prices for a single item; however, we are now seeing the concept being extended to…

Introduction

Following up from Part 1 of our article on the interaction of between privacy and competition law in the economy, Part 2 surveys how competition law enforcers in the United States, European Union, and Canada have addressed both competition and privacy concerns as it relates to data.

A number of significant mergers have…

Introduction

In a digital economy, there has been an increasing amount of scrutiny regarding technology’s impact on consumers and competition. One key question is whether privacy should be considered a dimension of competition? That is to say, is privacy relevant to the analysis of competitive effects?

Competition law incorporates many non-price dimensions of competition, including…

Tying occurs when a consumer buys one product (the “tying product”) and is required to either purchase an additional product that exists in a separate market (the “tied product”), or agrees not to purchase the additional tied product from any other seller.  Tied selling is only problematic where the practice is likely to have an anti-competitive effect.

A fundamental requirement of tying is the existence of two products, the tying product and the tied product (the “separate products criterion”).  The separate products criterion is not always straight-forward because all value-adding activity involves a degree of bundling of separate components, however no economic test exists to determine where one product should end and another begin.

One can easily imagine situations where the existence of a stand-alone market for the tied product can coexist with a bundled product.  For example, it is possible to buy shoelaces (tied product) as a stand-alone product in shoe stores, but sellers of new shoes sell their shoes bundled with laces (tying product).  Other examples include cars and GPS systems, cars and satellite radio services, and computers and browsers.  This distinction has led to debate and varying approaches across jurisdictions.Continue Reading What Constitutes a Separate Product?