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Leslie J. Milton

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Leslie has recently returned to her communications, competition and administrative law practice at Fasken from an in-house counsel position at a leading global satellite services provider. Leslie provides complex legal and strategic advice to Canadian and foreign wireline, wireless and satellite telecommunications service providers on all aspects of telecommunications and radiocommunications regulation in Canada.

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Competition Act Merger Notification Thresholds

The Canadian government has announced that the transaction-size threshold for pre-notification under the Competition Act will remain at C$93M for 2024. This is the third year that the transaction-size threshold has been fixed at this level, despite inflationary pressures throughout this period.

Mergers are subject to pre-closing notification in Canada if certain thresholds are met. These thresholds include a transaction-size threshold and a party-size threshold.Continue Reading Merger Transaction-Size Threshold Remains Frozen at C$93M; Investment Canada Act Review Thresholds Increased

On July 19, 2023, the United States Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice (together, the “Agencies”) released draft Merger Guidelines (the “Draft Guidelines”) for public comment. Once finalized, the Draft Guidelines, which are designed to help the public, business community, practitioners and courts understand how the Agencies identify potentially illegal mergers, will replace the US Horizontal Merger Guidelines issued in 2010 and the US Vertical Merger Guidelines issued in 2020.Continue Reading United States Antitrust Agencies Announce New Merger Guidelines: Overview and Implications for Canada

On November 17, 2022, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, launched the much anticipated public consultation for potential amendments to the Competition Act (the “Act”). As discussed in our previous blog post, this consultation was intended to serve as a wide-ranging review of existing competition policy in Canada, including whether the Act is fit for purpose in a modern economy that continues to evolve quickly.Continue Reading Competition Bureau Recommends Significant Changes to Competition Act

As discussed in our previous blog post, on November 17, 2022, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, launched the much anticipated public consultation on the second stage of potential amendments to the Competition Act (the “Act”).

As part of this consultation process, the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (“ISED”) issued a discussion paper, titled The Future of Competition Policy in Canada (the “Discussion Paper”), which considers numerous issues and potential areas of reform, including in the mergers, unilateral conduct, competitor collaboration, deceptive marketing and administration/enforcement context. The Discussion Paper does not include any particular recommendations or proposed amendments to the Act. Rather, it simply sets the stage and invites feedback from interested stakeholders on the issues and potential areas of reform, which can be provided on or before February 27, 2023.

To help businesses better understand the issues and potential areas of reform included in the Discussion Paper, we’re releasing a series of blog posts discussing these issues and potential areas of reform on a topic-by-topic basis. This is the fourth blog post in the series, which is focused on deceptive marketing in Canada.Continue Reading Deceptive Marketing – Enforcement in the Digital Age

Competition, marketing and foreign investment law saw a number of changes in the past year. Many of these changes were in response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly changed the way Canadians, businesses and government agencies operate. Despite the pandemic, the Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) has actively continued its enforcement activity and provided a number of guidance documents to help businesses stay onside the Competition Act (the “Act”). Similarly, Canada’s Investment Review Division (“IRD”) of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (“ISED”) has also responded to the challenges resulting from the pandemic.
Continue Reading Fasken’s Forecast for 2022 and Beyond: 2021’s Top 10 Trends in Canadian Competition, Marketing & Foreign Investment Law and what Businesses should expect in 2022

The recent Kobe Mohr v. National Hockey League[1] decision of the Federal Court (the “Decision”) provides important jurisprudential guidance on the application of sections 45 and 48 of the Competition Act (the “Act”).  These provisions prohibit naked anti-competitive conspiracies and conspiracies relating participation in professional sports respectively.
Continue Reading Federal Court Decision Clarifies Scope of Competition Act Conspiracy Provisions

The Canadian Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) issued much welcomed guidance on Friday to confirm what many have said to date, namely that no-poaching,[1] wage-fixing[2] and other buy-side agreements fall outside the scope of the criminal conspiracy provision (section 45) of the Competition Act (the “Act”). This guidance comes in…

The Canadian Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) has released a toolkit – Strengthening Canada’s economy through pro-competitive policies (the “Toolkit”) – to assist regulators and policymakers, at all levels of government, in maximizing competition in Canadian industries. The Toolkit offers a five-step process for policymakers to assess the impact of new and existing policies on competition, and tailor those policies to maximize the benefits of competition across the Canadian economy.

The Bureau suggests engaging in a competition assessment each time a new policy is proposed or an existing policy is reviewed. The Bureau’s five-step competition assessment process is summarized below:

Step 1: Identify the policy. The first step is to specify the underlying goals that the policy is designed to achieve and the proposed measures to achieve those goals.

Step 2: Assess whether the policy impacts competition. The second step involves an assessment of the impact of the proposed measures on competition, with reference to the following four indicators of a competitive marketplace:

  • the ability of businesses to enter or expand in a market or operate across borders;
  • the ability of businesses to set the price, quality and quantity of the products or services sold;
  • the incentives for businesses to compete vigorously; and
  • the potential for consumers to switch between competing businesses.

Continue Reading Competition Bureau Seeks to Promote Consideration of Competition by Policymakers with New Toolkit

Many have expressed concern that retailers are now incentivized to unilaterally increase the prices for products critical to the COVID-19 response. Canada’s competition enforcer, the Competition Bureau, does not have clear jurisdiction to regulate prices or otherwise directly prevent price gouging. However, the Ontario government is now expressly prohibiting price gouging for “necessary goods” (as defined). In particular, through an emergency prohibition order made under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act on March 27, 2020, certain persons are prohibited from selling “necessary goods” at “unconscionable prices”.
Continue Reading Ontario Implements Price Gouging Measures: What You Need to Know

The competitiveness and reach of Canadian wireline and wireless services are critical to the economic prosperity and social inclusion of Canadians. It is not surprising therefore that the Canadian Competition Bureau identified telecommunications as a priority area in its 2019-2020 Annual Plan.

True to this plan, in August of this year the Bureau released…