Canadian COMPETITION & ANTITRUST LAW

We work with other lawyers, economists and consultants from time-to-time on specific projects, including:

Dr. Derek Ireland

Derek Ireland is an Ottawa based economist and consultant, who works on projects with our firm from time-to-time. Derek has a BA in Economics and Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Economics from Carleton University, which he received in the mid-1970s. He returned to university in the Fall of 2003, and received his PhD in Public Policy from Carleton University in Ottawa Canada in February 2009. His PhD research and dissertation focused on the development of competition policy, law and institutions in developing and emerging market economies – with emphasis on the evolution of competition policy and law in India and the role of the country’s business groups and other informal business institutions and arrangements in shaping India’s competition regimes.

Dr. Ireland has worked as an economist, policy analyst and manager in the Canadian public and private sectors for 40 years.  His current research and consulting studies are emphasizing how recent advances in economic theory can be applied in order to better understand public policy issues and challenges in such areas as competition, consumer and innovation policies and regulatory reform, implementation and impact analysis in both advanced and developing countries.

Over the past three years, Dr. Ireland has made a number of presentations to Canadian and international conferences and was joint author of a number of articles that appeared in publications including recent editions of “How Ottawa Spends” of Carleton University.  In October 2009, he presented a paper on “Merger Review and the Dangers of the Two-firm Local Nexus Criterion: Implications for Developing Countries” to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association in Toronto.  In November 2009, he presented a related paper on “Merger Regulation in Developing Economies” to the International Conference on Competition Law in New Delhi India.  Manish Agarwal, an economist from India who recently received his PhD in Business and Management from the University of South Australia in Adelaide, was the co-author of the first paper and an important contributor to the second paper, which was published in the Conference proceedings.

In October 2010, Dr. Ireland presented a paper on “Competition Policy and Law in Asia’s Emerging Markets” to the Canadian Asian Studies Association Conference held in Ottawa; and in September 2011 he presented a paper on “Business Groups and Competition Policy and Law” to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association Meeting.  An expanded version of the second paper will appear quite soon in the Indian journal “Developing World Review on Trade & Competition”.

The articles that he co-authored for “How Ottawa Spends” were on “The Canadian Escape from the Subprime Crisis” for the 2010-2011 edition; and on “Regulatory Agency Budget Cuts” for the 2011-2012 edition.  A third article on the “Rise and Fall of Regulatory Regimes: Extending the Life-Cycle Approach” will appear in the 2012-2013 edition.  The article on the subprime mortgage crisis provided the basis for a presentation that Dr. Ireland was invited to make, following an international competition, to the second CUTS-CIRC Conference on Economic Regulation held in New Delhi in April 2011.  This paper will appear in a book that will result from the Conference.  In addition, during the summer of 2011, Dr. Ireland was co-author of two research papers on the implementation of regulations prepared for the Red Tape Reduction Commission, which published its final report in January 2012.

From August to December 2011, Dr. Ireland was Team Leader of a consulting team that worked with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat to improve the design and enforcement of competition policy and law across SADC’s 15 member states.  This consulting assignment, which was funded by the European Union, was conducted for the most part at the SADC Secretariat in Gaborone Botswana.  Priority was given to the preparation of short documents on international and SADC best practices to assist the ten member states with operational competition laws to enhance their enforcement practices and analytical methods on the competition law issues and provisions that are most important to them.

Dr. Ireland would be happy to discuss his research with any of the readers of this website. His Email address is djirel@sympatico.ca.