June 23, 2020
Practical Law Canada has published a New Legal Update, which discusses recent settlements of bid-rigging cases under section 47 of the Canadian Competition Act under the Act’s prohibition order section, which offers a number of advantages for settling parties. Below is an excerpt with a link to the full Legal Update at Practical Law.
____________________
On June 19, 2020, the Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced that two Canadian engineering firms, SNC-Lavalin (SNC) and Génius Conseil Inc. (Génius), had been ordered by the Superior Court of Québec to pay a combined $2.2 million in relation to an ongoing investigation into bid-rigging on municipal infrastructure contracts in Québec between 2003 and 2012 (see News Releases, SNC-Lavalin to pay $1.9 million in fourth Québec bid-rigging settlement and Génius Conseil Inc. to pay $300,000 in fifth Québec bid-rigging settlement, Competition Bureau, June 19, 2020). For more information about bid-rigging under the Competition Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-34, see Practice Note, Canadian Bid-Rigging Law. See also Detecting Bid-Rigging Checklist and Deterring Bid-Rigging Checklist.
According to the Bureau, SNC and Génius previously reimbursed the bid-rigging related overpayments under Québec’s former Voluntary Reimbursement Program, which was designed to recover amounts improperly paid as a result of fraud in relation to public contracts. Génius also cooperated with the Bureau’s investigation under its Leniency Program, whereby parties that do not qualify for full immunity (for example, are not the first to disclose an offence to the Bureau) may still qualify for leniency in sentencing. For more information about the Bureau’s Immunity and Leniency Programs, see Practice Note, Competition Bureau Immunity and Leniency Programs and Calculation of Competition Act Fines Checklist.
Dessau, WSP Canada and Norda Stelo have also previously been ordered to pay a total of $6.65 million for their roles in this case. As part of the most recent settlements, the Court also ordered SNC-Lavalin to maintain its competition compliance program. For more information about competition compliance programs, see Practice Note, Competition Law Compliance Programs and Standard Document, Competition Law Compliance Program.
The settlements in these recent cases were apparently reached under section 34(2) of the Competition Act, which allows a superior court to prohibit the commission of an offence under Part VI of the Competition Act (including bid-rigging) where a person “has done, is about to do or is likely to do any act or thing constituting or directed toward the commission of the offence.”
(…)
For the full Update, see: Public Prosecution Service of Canada Continues to Settle Engineering Bid-Rigging Cases Under Competition Act Prohibition Order Provisions.
********************
SERVICES AND CONTACT
We are a Toronto based competition and advertising law firm offering business and individual clients efficient and strategic advice in relation to competition/antitrust, advertising, Internet and new media law and contest law. We also offer competition and regulatory law compliance, education and policy services to companies, trade and professional associations and government agencies.
Our experience includes advising clients in Toronto, Canada and the United States on the application of Canadian competition and regulatory laws and we have worked on hundreds of domestic and cross-border competition, advertising and marketing, promotional contest (sweepstakes), conspiracy (cartel), abuse of dominance, compliance, refusal to deal and pricing and distribution matters. For more information about our competition and advertising law services see: competition law services.
To contact us about a potential legal matter, see: contact
For more information about our firm, visit our website: Competitionlawyer.ca
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
