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Archive for the 'Competition Bureau' Category

January 22, 2014

Steve Szentesi
Kevin Wright (Davis LLP)

Extract from a chapter to be published in CLEBC
Annual Review of Law & Practice – 2014

The following are some of the key civil and criminal competition law developments in Canada in 2013 (late 2012 to early 2014) from our forthcoming chapter in CLEBC’s Annual Review of Law & Practice – 2014.

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Do you need contest rules/precedents
for a Canadian contest?

We offer many types of Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents and forms (i.e., Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents to run common types of contests in Canada).  These include precedents for random draw contests (i.e., where winners are chosen by random draw), skill contests (e.g., essay, photo or other types of contests where entrants submit content that is judged to enter the contest or for additional entries), trip contests and more.  Also available are individual Canadian contest/sweepstakes precedents, including short rules (“mini-rules”), long rules, winner releases and a Canadian contest law checklist.  For more information or to order, see: Canadian Contest Law Forms/Precedents.  If you would like to discuss legal advice in relation to your contest or other promotion, contact us: Contact.

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I’ve been working on a fair number of contests lately.  Sometimes they appear deceptively simple, but in fact are fairly highly regulated including a small tangle of modern (e.g., the federal Competition Act and social media sites’ terms of use) and antiquated laws (e.g., the sometimes tortuous illegal lottery provisions of the Criminal Code).

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January 20, 2014

Steve Szentesi
Kevin Wright (Davis LLP)

Extract from a chapter to be published in CLEBC
Annual Review of Law & Practice – 2014

2013 was once again a busy year for Canadian competition and foreign investment law, administration and policy, including the June 12, 2013 announcement that then Interim Commissioner John Pecman had been appointed to a five year term as Commissioner of Competition, the head of the federal Competition Bureau.

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January 13, 2014

Earlier today, the German antitrust authority (the Bundeskartellamt) announced that $145 million in fines had been imposed against five beer manufacturers and seven individuals in a beer price-fixing case (see: First fines imposed in cartel proceedings against breweries).

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January 10, 2014

Throughout last year, competition law compliance for trade and professional associations remained a key theme for Canada’s Competition Bureau.  The new Commissioner of Competition John Pecman addressed trade association compliance and recent association cases five times in remarks between late 2012 and the end of 2013 (see for example, here and here).

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Do you need contest rules/precedents
for a Canadian contest?

We offer many types of Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents and forms (i.e., Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents to run common types of contests in Canada).  These include precedents for random draw contests (i.e., where winners are chosen by random draw), skill contests (e.g., essay, photo or other types of contests where entrants submit content that is judged to enter the contest or for additional entries), trip contests and more.  Also available are individual Canadian contest/sweepstakes precedents, including short rules (“mini-rules”), long rules, winner releases and a Canadian contest law checklist.  For more information or to order, see: Canadian Contest Law Forms/Precedents.  If you would like to discuss legal advice in relation to your contest or other promotion, contact us: Contact.

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These days, running a contest invariably means social media (or multiple social media) and typically Facebook and Twitter.  So when I talk to clients about the promotions they have in mind, I often start (or almost start) the discussion with how they want to promote their contest.

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January 6, 2014

On December 4, 2013, the Federal Government announced that Canada’s new anti-spam legislation (CASL) would finally largely come into force on July 1, 2014 (with several transition periods for the unauthorized installation of computer program and private action provisions).  The following is my updated summary of the impending CASL, including summaries of the consent, form and unsubscribe requirements (and legislative links and key resources).

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January 4, 2014

Strategies for discouraging and enforcement against competition law cartels (e.g., price-fixing, market allocation, bid-rigging and other illegal agreements between competitors) have ranged from promoting compliance programs to competition agency immunity and leniency programs to increasing cartel penalties to deter anti-competitive agreements that interrupt the natural operation of markets.  Price-fixing and other cartel agreements however, it seems from recent enforcement agency statistics both in Canada and elsewhere, continue to flourish despite such strategies. Addressing this issue, this interesting new article by Constantine Cannon (entitled Bring in the Whistleblowers and Pay Them) queries whether paying corporate whistleblowers for disclosing illegal cartel activities makes more sense than, for example, incentivizing parties to report and cooperate with authorities with the promise of  immunity or leniency. Abstract:

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    buy-contest-form Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada

    buy-contest-form Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)

    WELCOME TO CANADIAN COMPETITION LAW! - OUR COMPETITION BLOG

    We are a Toronto based competition, advertising and regulatory law firm.

    We offer business, association, government and other clients in Toronto, Canada and internationally efficient and strategic advice in relation to Canadian competition, advertising, regulatory and new media laws. We also offer compliance, education and policy services.

    Our experience includes more than 20 years advising companies, trade and professional associations, governments and other clients in relation to competition, advertising and marketing, promotional contest, cartel, abuse of dominance, competition compliance, refusal to deal and pricing and distribution law matters.

    Our representative work includes filing and defending against Competition Bureau complaints, legal opinions and advice, competition, CASL and advertising compliance programs and strategy in competition and regulatory law matters.

    We have also written and helped develop many competition and advertising law related industry resources including compliance programs, acting as subject matter experts for online and in-person industry compliance courses and Steve Szentesi as Lawyer Editor for Practical Law Canada Competition.

    For more about us, visit our website: here.