Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
Our friends at Canadian Lawyers Abroad (CLA) will be hosting Rights of Spring – a cocktail party highlighting the CLA’s Indiginous rights and justice program in Toronto on Thursday April 26, 2012, from 6-9:00 pm at Globealive’s SHAMBA Foundation at 48 Yonge Street, Suite 1200.
The guest speaker for this event will be Phil Fontaine, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
We are honoured to have been nominated for an award in the Legal category for the 2012 Acquisition International M&A Awards. We would like to thank the person that nominated us!
“Book publishing, one of the world’s signal achievements, is predicated upon diversity: the diversity of tastes and backgrounds, of editors taking chances on undiscovered writers and promoting them alongside marquee authors. The dominance of this special industry by any single company will overly determine its cultural output and, within only a handful of years, erode its prized diversity. This diversity is why readers turn to books in the first place.”
(New York Times, Michael Fine, publisher)
Earlier today, I read two rather excellent commentaries on the ongoing U.S. Department of Justice’s price-fixing lawsuit against e-book publishers.
In the first, a New York Times Sunday Dialogue entitled “Books in the Digital Age”, New York Times readers debate the ability of publishers to react to the market presence of Amazon, impacts on consumers as a result of the publishers’ alleged price-fixing activities, e-book and conventional book pricing and consumer choice.
In the second, Ariel Katz compares the current case to the industry-wide book publisher cartel a century ago and Bobbs-Merrill v. Straus case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court established the first-sale doctrine. In his rather fine comparative note, Ariel Katz discusses the ongoing e-book price-fixing case, the earlier turn of the 20th century book publisher cartel, historical efforts by publishers to counteract retailers’ discounting and the role of intellectual property rights in the facilitation of publisher related cartels.
Christine Duhaime (Anti-money Laundering Law in Canada)
Canada is seeking the extradition of the alleged organizer of the migrant ship, the MV Sun Sea, that illegally transported 492 Sri Lankan foreign nationals from Thailand to Canada in August 2010. Thayakaran Markandu, who is also a Sri Lankan foreign national, was arrested in France and is being held in custody by French authorities. Earlier this month, the RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of human smuggling under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The charges may be amended to include money laundering with respect to the proceeds of the smuggling operation. Examples of money laundering that may occur in human smuggling operations include the use of funds paid to smugglers or traffickers, the use of funds paid to procure supplies or boats for smuggling or trafficking, or the use of funds from terrorists or terrorist organizations. Those aboard the MV Sun Sea claim they paid between $20,000 to $40,000 to be smuggled into Canada.
Difference between Human Smuggling & Human Trafficking
There may also emerge evidence of human trafficking in the MV Sun Sea smuggling operation. Several of the migrants have told Canadian authorities that they owe “debts” to those who arranged their voyage on the MV Sun Sea and will have to pay their “agents” substantial sums to clear the debts in Canada. This suggests they were trafficked and not smuggled.
Andrew D. Gay
On April 11, 2012, the British Columbia Government moved to modernize liquor laws in BC by allowing movie theatres to apply for liquor licences. In addition, licensed multi-purpose venues, sometimes known as “live event theatres”, have been given greater flexibility to use their facilities as movie theatres without running afoul of a previous rule which prohibited licensed establishments from showing anything more than “occasional” films.
Changes to the rules were first attempted by the Province in February, 2012, when the government sought to provide greater flexibility to live event theatres to show films. However, the changes to the law at that time were ill-conceived such that live event theatres could only show films outside their hours of liquor service, meaning they could not show films in the evening even if they did not serve liquor. Negative reaction to that kind of continuing red tape was swift, leading to the further changes on April 11.
The recent changes were effected through an amendment to section 8 of the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation which previously provided that an establishment operating as a movie theatre would be operating in a manner inconsistent with the “primary purpose” of the liquor licence.
The changes have been warmly received by industry, particularly by those who have struggled to keep small local theatres operating, as it is anticipated that sustainable revenues are now achievable. The large multiplex theatres which lobbied for the changes were predictably pleased as well.
Andrew Gay is a partner at the Vancouver litigation firm Gudmundseth Mickelson LLP. In addition to his work as a commercial litigator, Andrew is an expert in liquor law and routinely represents clients in disputes with the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch. You can find Andrew at http://www.lawgm.com.
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On March 23, 2012, the Competition Bureau issued two new draft merger interpretation guidelines for public consultation:
These new interpretation guidelines provide additional guidance to merging parties as to whether a new pre-merger notification filing (or Advance Ruling Certificate application) is required where a transaction has been amended and calculation of revenues for the pre-merger notification thresholds to account for transactions between affiliates.
Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, has received Royal Assent (see: Bill C-10 – Status of Bill).
Among other things, Bill C-10 amends the current section 742.1 of the Criminal Code to provide that where a person is convicted of an offence and the court imposes a sentence of less than two years, the court may impose a conditional sentence (i.e., order the sentence to be served in the community), except in certain circumstances.
One such circumstance is where an offence is an indictable offence, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 14 years or life.
Given the controversy lately about the recently introduced federal Internet surveillance legislation (Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act), including commentary on changes to the Competition Act, I thought I would take a closer look to see what all the fuss has been about.
The Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, introduced Bill C-30 on February 14, 2012 and it passed first reading but has since stalled based on criticism from the public, academics and Liberals (see for example: Conservative Lawful Access Bill has Serious Implications for Canadians’ Privacy, Liberals Call on Government to Protect the Privacy of All Canadians, Liberals Launch Petition and Amendments to Government Snooping Bill, How to Fix Canada’s Online Surveillance Bill: A 12 Step To-Do List, C-30 orders called “draconian” and Ottawa hits pause on Web surveillance act).
Bill C-30 would, if passed, give enforcement authorities, including the Competition Bureau, enhanced powers to monitor Internet communications and obtain Internet user information – for example, requiring telecom providers to establish and maintain measures to enable the interception of transmitted information and provide basic subscriber information to the RCMP, Canada’s intelligence body (CSIS), the Competition Bureau or the police.
Bill C-30 would also amend the wiretap and warrant provisions of the Criminal Code and add new investigative powers relating to computer crime and use of emerging technologies for crimes.
With respect to the Competition Act, Bill C-30 would, if passed, amend the Act to incorporate the proposed Criminal Code provisions relating to demands and orders for the preservation of computer data (and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data). Some of the specific proposed changes to the Competition Act include:
Expanding the definition of “record”. The definition of “record” in subsection 2(2) of the Competition Act would be amended (and expanded) to include any “medium on which information is registered or marked”.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
