Archive for the 'Competition Law' 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.
Contests continue to be a popular and engaging way to promote brands, events, product launches and other things. Whether a random draw contest, consumer generated promotion or other type, promotional contests are great for buzz, traffic and attention. Based on continued demand I’m pleased to offer a new Canadian contest forms package to add to my existing contest forms for Facebook “Like” contests.
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 15, 2013
The Americans are not ones to pussy foot around when it comes to economic crime. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights held cartel related hearings bluntly entitled “Time Change: Cartel Prosecution: Stopping Price Fixers and Protecting Consumers”. Testimony included remarks by William Baer (Assistant A.G. in the DoJ’s Antitrust Division), Ronald Hosko (Assistant Director in the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division) and several academics and private antitrust practitioners. Witness testimony has now been posted along with a webcast – see: here.