Archive for the 'Competition Bureau' Category
November 27, 2013
Looking for a (perhaps slightly dark) entertaining read about popular scams? On November 1st the Canadian Competition Bureau updated its Little Black Book of Scams.
November 21, 2013
Canada’s (relatively new now) Commissioner of Competition is on the road at the moment, having delivered remarks yesterday in India. In a short but focused speech in Kashipur India, the Commissioner focused quite a bit on the history of Canadian competition law, the importance of competition to an effective economy and compliance.
November 20, 2013
The U.S. CLE provider Strafford is hosting what I think looks like quite an interesting upcoming associations and information exchange related webinar entitled: Antitrust Risks of Association-Sponsored Market Research. “Information exchanges” (via surveys, member interaction, meetings, conventions, social media, other online fora, etc.) are of course a common and ubiquitous activity for most trade and professional associations, both in Canada and internationally. Given that they can also raise competition/antitrust law risk, however, with the potential issues in Canada and the U.S. being largely the same, this upcoming webinar caught my eye.
November 19, 2013
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has obtained a federal court order to temporarily halt the operations and freeze the assets of an alleged fraudulent Montreal-based “Yellow Pages” business directory scheme. In making the announcement, the FTC said: “Hiding behind borders to scam churches and small businesses is a tactic that we’ve seen before. … Scammers need to know that we have great relationships with our law enforcement partners in Canada and, as this case shows, we can and will work together to protect our consumers.”
November 15, 2013
Canada’s new Commissioner of Competition, John Pecman, delivered remarks yesterday in Toronto centered around what he has been referring to recently as the “4Cs” (the Competition Bureau’s four current areas of focus: compliance; communication; collaboration; and Canadians). As part of his remarks, as he has been doing since last fall, he once again discussed trade associations, and in particular association compliance and the importance of adopting credible and effective competition law compliance programs.
November 15, 2013
A few upcoming Canadian Bar Association (CBA) Competition Law Section events caught my eye including the following on the recent Apple cartel case and MFN provisions, recent Canadian and international corruption law developments, Supreme Court’s recent indirect purchaser class action judgments and a roundup of recent important competition law developments.
November 13, 2013
Given the recently increased focus on criminal competition law matters (e.g., cartels) and whistleblowing, the latter in the competition law world and corporate crime area generally, I thought I would launch a new whistleblowing page on the blog. A kind of rolling compilation of Canadian competition law whistleblowing information. For my first go at a few key recent Canadian competition law whistleblowing sources see: whistleblowers or below. As usual for my competition law overviews, I’ve endeavoured to include a few quotes that I’ve come across and thought were really rather good, including Ralph Nadar’s inaugural definition of “whistleblower” from the 1970s.
November 11, 2013
In one of the most interesting stories that caught my eye on my daily media sweep today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that some of the U.S. big banks are considering blocking employees from computer chat rooms, based on growing market manipulation and collusion scrutiny from regulators (see: Big Banks May Block Traders From Chat Rooms). According to the WSJ, J.P. Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse are weighing whether to disable computerized chat rooms that link traders across multiple competing banks and are used by thousands of employees globally. Other banks, including RBS, Barclays and UBS, are reported to be reviewing chat room use and guidelines for controlling and monitoring communications.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
