Archive for the 'Competition Law' Category
Canadian Marketing Association – 2012 CMA Summit
MAY 16 – 17 2012
The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) will be holding its 2012 Summit entitled Connections: Listen, Engage, Measure in Toronto from May 16 – 17 2012.
From the CMA:
“Marketing is about connecting. Connecting with consumers, connecting with customers, connecting with each other. The CMA Summit 2012 (formerly the CMA National Convention) is all about Connections. How these connections are made, maintained and measured.
Learn from world-class speakders (keynote and workshop), visionaries, tactical experts, leading-edge strategists and marketing miracle workers who will help you find your way in an ever-changing business environment. Give yourself the greatest advantage over your competitors knowledge!
Network with the who’s who of the marketing world. Make important business connections with clients, suppliers, competitors and peers. This summit brings the marketing world together in one convenient place!”
For more see:
Connections: Listen, Engage, Measure
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In an interesting story in the Montreal Gazette today, Douglas Quan reports that a Public Safety Canada study calls for “more independent oversight” to “combat bribery, extortion, collusive bidding and other illegal activities in Canada’s commercial construction industry”:
“’Every contractual link provides an opportunity for someone to pay a bribe in return for the award of the contract,’ the study said.
The corruption can take many forms. Contractors have been known to pay bribes in order to obtain a contract. Union officials have threatened work slowdowns unless contractors pay them money. Competing firms have entered into agreements where they share their bid prices with one another prior to bidding in order to pre-determine the winner and then the winning firm pays a kickback to the losing firm. Such corruption can lead to unsafe construction projects because they ‘fail to meet safety requirements as a result of fraud in building materials or the bribery of public inspectors,’ the study warned.”
The construction industry has long been the target of allegations and investigations by competition/antitrust regulators. For example, some of the construction related cases in Canada, many of which have also involved trade associations, have included building contractors, corrugated metal pipe manufacturers, electrical contractors, gypsum dealers and manufacturers, plumbing contractors, among many others.
The United States Department of Justice announced that it was closing its three investigations into Google Inc’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., the acquisitions by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and RIM of certain Nortel patents, and the acquisition by Apple of certain Novell Inc. patents (see: Department of Justice Closes its Investigation of Google Inc.’s Acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.).
In making the announcement, the DoJ said:
“After a thorough review of the proposed transactions, the Antitrust Division has determined that each acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition and has closed these three investigations. In all of the transactions, the division conducted an in-depth analysis into the potential ability and incentives of the acquiring firms to use the patents they proposed acquiring to foreclose competitors. In particular, the division focused on standard essential patents (SEPs) that Motorola Mobility and Nortel had committed to license to industry participants through their participation in standard-setting organizations (SSOs). The division’s investigations focused on whether the acquiring firms could use these patents to raise rivals’ costs or foreclose competition.
The division concluded that the specific transactions at issue are not likely to significantly change existing market dynamics.”
The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Globe and Mail and others have reported that the Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) is investigating alleged price-fixing in the setting of interbank lending rates.
Interbank rates include the London interbank offered rate (“LIBOR”), Tokyo interbank offered rate (“TIBOR”) and euro interbank offered rate (“Euribor”).
The essence of the allegations in this ongoing and global case appears to be whether, if true, the fixing of interbank rates adversely affected the price of derivative and other financial products (such as credit default swaps, mortgages, etc.).
Freshfields has published an interesting review of global antitrust trends for 2012 entitled Global antitrust in 2012: 10 key themes.
This rather fine Freshfields article discusses the following 10 trends for 2012:
1. Cartels: cracking down on anti-competitive information exchange.
2. More aggressive investigation techniques.
3. Focus on supply and distribution networks.
4. Consumer action: a growing threat of private claims and class actions.
5. Cross-border M&A: going beyond traditional competition rules.
6. The challenges of rapidly developing industries.
7. Antitrust scrutiny of financial services.
8. Single-firm conduct in a global market-place.
9. Asia: active enforcement by rapidly developing regimes.
10. Protection of human rights in antitrust cases.
A question commonly posed to competition counsel, including me, when talking about the risks of meetings between competitors and information exchanges (for example in the trade association context) is whether it is illegal to merely talk about competitively sensitive information – for example, prices, costs, markets, customers, suppliers, strategic or business plans and so on.
In an interesting speech issued a little while back (Antitrust Issues Related to Benchmarking and Other Information Exchanges), Thomas Rosch, a Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, addresses a number of current and historical issues related to information exchanges and benchmarking. Given that many of the same issues can arise regardless of jurisdiction (though enforcement agencies in Europe tend to approach the issue more strictly), I thought I would post some of the highlights of his remarks.
MARCH 27, 2012 – Toronto
Advertising Standards Canada (“ASC”) will be holding an introductory seminar relating to its Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, “Canada’s principal instrument of advertising regulation.”
On February 9, 2012 a Revised Scheduling Order was issued and a Notice of Motion was filed by The Toronto Real Estate Board (“TREB”) in the ongoing Commissioner of Competition v. The Toronto Real Estate Board abuse of dominance (monopoly) case.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
