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Archive for the 'Advertising' Category

April 4, 2014

The Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia (CLE BC) has published its Annual Review of Law & Practice – 2014.  This summary of major areas of Canadian law applicable in British Columbia includes my co-authored chapter on Canadian competition law developments and trends in 2013.

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March 30, 2014

Canada’s Competition Bureau has issued a number of new anti-cartel (Competition Act conspiracy) compliance materials, including an updated version of its Bid-Rigging Pamphlet and two new pamphlets: a Competitor Collaboration Pamphlet (a more comprehensive set of Bureau enforcement guidelines on this topic already exists) and an entirely new Trade Associations Pamphlet.

The Bureau had been planning to issue a standalone Bulletin on associations several years ago, but has evidently opted to rely on the association related discussion in its Competitor Collaboration Guidelines and this newly issued short pamphlet.  The Bureau has also issued a new video on competition law compliance.

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March 29, 2014

Private parties may commence damages actions under the Competition Act (the “Act”) for violations of the criminal provisions of the Act (under Part VI) or a breach of a court or Competition Tribunal (“Tribunal”) order made under the Act.

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February 25, 2014

In an interesting and important decision issued by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on February 21st, the Court has now imposed a $500,000 civil administrative monetary penalty (“AMP”) against Rogers for failing to have performed adequate and proper testing in some Canadian markets for performance claims made in relation to its Chatr Wireless brand (see: Canada (Commissioner of Competition) v. Chatr Wireless Inc., 2014 ONSC 1146).

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February 18, 2014

A lot of advertising law, both in Canada and other major jurisdictions, tends to revolve around two major themes: deception and ownership.  As such, when it comes to reviewing advertising for compliance in Canada, a lot of issues (or potential issues) can be identified with two main questions: first, “is it true” (i.e., false or misleading)?; and second, “do we own it”?

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February 16, 2014

When I deliver competition compliance seminars and talk to industry groups, I often discuss the fact that imprisonment is one possible criminal penalty under the Competition Act (though is, somewhat curiously, more commonly imposed for deceptive advertising than for price-fixing or other criminal competition law conduct).  While that may soon change with the recent elimination of conditional sentences for cartel offences (e.g., price-fixing and other per se illegal agreements between competitors) and bid-rigging, several days ago the Competition Bureau announced that a Canadian court has once again imposed a prison sentence for misleading advertising.

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January 29, 2014

The National Competition Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association has issued a call for papers for this year’s James H. Bocking Memorial Award.  This annual award is presented for the best scholarly paper by a full time student or young lawyer (within the first three years of call) submitted to the Competition Law Section on a topic relating to Canadian competition law and policy.

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CANADIAN CASL (ANTI-SPAM LAW) PRECEDENTS

Do you need a precedent or checklist
to comply with CASL (Canadian anti-spam law)?

We offer Canadian anti-spam law (CASL) precedents and checklists to help electronic marketers comply with CASL.  These include checklists and precedents for express consent requests (including on behalf of third parties), sender identification information, unsubscribe mechanisms, business related exemptions and types of implied consent and documenting consent and scrubbing distribution lists.  We also offer a CASL corporate compliance program.  For more information or to order, see: Anti-Spam (CASL) Precedents/Forms.  If you would like to discuss CASL legal advice or for other advertising or marketing in Canada, including contests/sweepstakes, contact us: steve@szentesilaw.com

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Five months or so to go until Canada’s new anti-spam legislation (CASL) will largely come into force.  Generally speaking, the new law will require advance, express opt-in consent for commercial electronic messages sent to or received by Canadian computers, including inbound marketing by U.S. and international marketers, unless an exception or category of implied consent applies.

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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.