Commissioner of Competition

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Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (“ISED”), Francois-Philippe Champagne, made two important announcements on Monday morning in an exclusive interview with Toronto Star business reporter, Christine Dobby, and in a subsequent press release: (1) the Government of Canada (the “Government”) will engage in a broad review of the Competition Act (the “Act”) with a view to promoting dynamic and fair markets, and (2) the $93 million transaction-size threshold for pre-merger notification will not be increased this year – an unusual development following a year of GDP growth.
Continue Reading Upcoming Review of the Competition Act and Other Developments

chess pieces

On July 1, 2021, the Competition Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) ruled that it does not have the power to issue “interim, interim orders” in the context of a proposed merger of two companies in the midstream infrastructure and environmental solutions space. Rather, the Tribunal found that, in the case of mergers, interim relief is limited to that expressly provided for by sections 100 and 104 of the Competition Act (the “Act”).Continue Reading Competition Tribunal Dismisses Request for Interim, Interim Order

On March 18, 2020, the Commissioner of Competition (the “Commissioner”) issued an open letter to the executive members of the Canadian Bar Association’s Competition Law Section regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Competition Bureau’s (the “Bureau”) enforcement processes. In this letter, the Commissioner stated that “the Bureau may … need to prioritize urgent marketplace issues that require immediate action to protect Canadians”. While the Commissioner did not provide specific examples of “urgent market issues”, a subsequent statement issued by the Bureau suggests that these issues include, among other things, deceptive marketing practices relating to COVID-19 and, in particular, false, misleading or unsubstantiated performance claims about a product’s ability to prevent, treat or cure the virus.
Continue Reading A Refresher on Performance Claims

Recent Legal News

On September 12, 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada denied Sobeys Incorporated’s (“Sobeys”) and Metro Incorporated’s (“Metro”) leave to appeal from a judgement of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (“ONSC”) – (“Sobeys v. Commissioner”) – dismissing their applications for disclosure of the identities…

As mentioned in our prior blog post titled Commissioner Points to More Active Enforcement, Greater Transparency and Refined Approach to Efficiencies Defence, the Commissioner of Competition announced during his keynote speech at the Canadian Bar Association’s Competition Law Spring Conference on May 7, 2019 that the Competition Bureau intended to release for public comment…

The front half of 2019 has seen a number of important competition law developments in Canada. In addition to a new Commissioner, a different procedural approach to the efficiencies defence in merger review and an increased focus on the digital economy, there have also been a number of consent agreements in the deceptive marketing space…

The Canadian Competition Tribunal recently dismissed a jurisdictional challenge by HarperCollins to the Commissioner of Competition’s application for an order prohibiting the implementation of an alleged agreement between HarperCollins and other e-book publishers.  The Commissioner’s application is under section 90.1 of the Competition Act (“non-criminal agreements between competitors”).  It alleges, broadly speaking, that in…