On June 23, 2022, Bill C-19, also known as the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No.1 (the “BIA”), received royal assent. As discussed in our previous blog post, the BIA includes significant amendments to the Competition Act (the “Act”), including with respect to abuse of dominance, which came into force in June 2022. On October 25, 2023, the Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) released a draft bulletin discussing its approach to the June 2022 abuse of dominance amendments (the “Draft Bulletin”). This blog post summarizes this new guidance.

By way of background, abuse of dominance under section 79 of the Act occurs when (i) a dominant firm or a dominant group of firms (ii) engages in a practice of anti-competitive acts, (iii) with the result that competition has been, is, or is likely to be prevented or lessened substantially in a market. Section 78 of the Act sets out a non-exhaustive list of examples of anti-competitive acts. Applications under the abuse of dominance provisions are heard only by the Competition Tribunal (the “Tribunal”). Where all three requirements of section 79 are met, the Tribunal may prohibit the anti-competitive conduct and may also direct the dominant firm to pay an administrative monetary penalty (“AMP”) or to take any action that is reasonable and necessary to overcome the anti-competitive effects of the conduct.Continue Reading Bureau Publishes New Abuse of Dominance Guidelines