Archive for the 'Events' Category
The following are a few upcoming competition/antitrust law conferences:
American Bar Association Financial Services and Competition (New York: June 7, 2012): Financial Services and Competition.
13th annual Civil Liberties and Competition Policy conference (Washington: June 21, 2012): Civil Liberties and Competition Policy.
Georgetown Law 6th Annual Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium (Washington: September 19, 2012). Canada’s Commissioner of Competition will be speaking at this conference: Antitrust Enforcement Symposium.
39th Fordham Conference (New York – September 20-21, 2012): Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy.
The Federal Government has published the Industry Minister’s remarks at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit in Toronto on May 8, 2012. Some of the highlights of the Minister’s speech include Federal economic initiatives over the past six years, foreign investment in Canada (according to the Minister, 95 new foreign businesses and expansion projects), trade and tariff elimination initiatives, Telecommunication Act amendments to lift foreign ownership restrictions for small telecom companies and recently tabled proposed amendments to the Investment Canada Act (Bill C-38) aimed at increasing transparency in the Canadian foreign investment review process.
For the Minister’s remarks and related news release see:
The following are a few advertising and regulatory law developments that caught my eye today:
The CRTC has published final regulations to regulate loud television commercials: CRTC moves a step closer to making loud TV ads a thing of the past. Slaw.ca posted an interesting note by David Canton on the use of social media and Facebook for operating online contests: Commercial Users of Social Media Need to Check Terms of Use. The U.S. FTC published tips to protect information and computers from online scammers: Secure Your Computer. The Minister of Public Safety addressed trade, security and competition in remarks at the Can/Am Border Trade Alliance Conference: Speaking Notes for the Honourable Vic Toews Minister of Public Safety at the Can/Am Border Trade Alliance Conference. The Globe published an interesting article on fraudulent advertising and phishing in relation to bank log-in websites: Phishing, other malicious websites soar in Canada.
The University of Toronto Law School will be holding an event on May 12th entitled “lawTechcamp”, intended to be an event to integrate legal professionals with new media and technology enthusiasts (CPD credits are also apparently available):
“lawTechCamp is a BarCamp-style community UnConference for new media and technology enthusiasts and legal professionals including bloggers, twitters, legal-technology lawyers, social networkers, and anyone curious about new media and the law. LawTechCampTO will be the first such event held worldwide.
lawTechCamp is not just for lawyers. If you are interested in the intersection of law and technology, such as legal issues facing startups, access to justice issues, or someone just interested in technology or law, then please join us – and bring a friend or colleague.”
The Canadian Bar Association’s National Section on International Law has issued a call for articles for the next issue of its newsletter. For more information and submission information see:
At the Spring CBA Competition Conference earlier today in Toronto, the Commissioner of Competition, Melanie Aitken, delivered an interesting keynote luncheon speech that provided insight into the Competition Bureau’s recent experience under Canada’s amended Competition Act, current enforcement and future priorities.
Mergers
With respect to mergers, the Commissioner addressed recent efforts (including the 2009 Competition Act amendments) to align Canada’s merger control regime with those of other major jurisdictions, notably the U.S.
The Commissioner also addressed the Bureau’s increased monitoring of non-notifiable mergers, cited some recent merger review related statistics (including the fact that the Bureau has reduced the average time to review complex transactions from about 50 days pre-2009 to about 36 days currently and that the Bureau has triggered second phase reviews (“supplementary information requests” or “SIRs”) in 18 cases over the past three years).
The Commissioner also indicated that the ongoing BC waste case (an ongoing non-notifiable contested merger case) was uncommon, but at the same time made it clear that the Bureau would: (i) not hesitate to litigate appropriate merger cases and (ii) was interested in clarifying the law under the merger provisions of the Competition Act.
Perhaps the Commissioner’s most interesting merger related remarks were those relating to the possibility of collapsing the current standalone efficiencies defense into the general merger provisions of the Competition Act. In this regard, the Commissioner appeared to indicate that Canada’s standalone efficiencies defense was out of step with other major jurisdictions.
The National Competition Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association will be hosting a Marketing Practices Committee Roundtable with Competition Bureau officials in Toronto this Thursday.
Bureau representatives are to include Lisa Campbell (Deputy Commissioner of Fair Business Practices) and Brendan Ross (Major Case Director and Strategic Policy Advisor).
For more information see:
The International Competition Network’s (ICN) 2012 Annual Conference has wrapped up and the ICN has posted copies of the papers, chapters and other conference materials including in relation to the ICN’s Advocacy, Cartel, Mergers and Unilateral Working Groups.
Canada-related materials include a summary of the Canadian Competition Bureau’s information sharing mechanisms (see: Cartel Working Group – Charts Summarizing Information Sharing Mechanisms) and discussions of some of the Bureau’s criminal enforcement efforts (see: Cartel Working Group – Anti-Cartel Enforcement Manual).
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
