Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
On March 9, 2012, the Competition Bureau launched its first monthly report of concluded merger reviews for the month of February.
16 transactions are included in the inaugural report including Anglo American plc / DB Investments SA and De Beers SA, Cardinal Health Canada Inc. / Futuremed Healthcare Products, Crescent Point Energy Corp. / Wild Stream Exploration, Dundee Real Estate Investment Trust / Whiterock Real Estate Investment Trust, RB98 Inc. and Google Inc. / Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., JMC Steel Group Inc. / Lakeside Steel Inc., Sobeys Capital Inc. / Shell Canada Products and Teck Resources Limited / SilverBirch Energy Corporation.
Of the reported transactions, advance ruling certificates (“ARCs”) were issued in four of the transactions and no action letters issued in the other twelve.
The Bureau had announced that it would be launching a new merger registry in early March – see for example: Mergers Update: Competition Bureau to Issue Monthly Merger Review Reports and Competition Bureau Moves to Increase Merger Review Transparency.
There has also been considerable opposition to this new “transparency” initiative by the Bureau – see for example, the Canadian Bar Association’s submission to the Senior Deputy Commissioner of Competition late last fall: CBA letter to Paul Collins.
Chillin’ Competition in Belgium, who have one of the most stylish competition blogs on the web (if competition can be stylish), posted this interesting new post about the European Commission launching a new competition law quiz – see: Test your knowledge of competition policy.
This rather sleek new (EU) Commission quiz includes questions for three levels of knowledge: basic, advanced and expert (in multiple languages).
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For more information about our regulatory law services contact us: contact
For more regulatory law updates follow us on Twitter: @CanadaAttorney
In an interesting development in the ongoing LIBOR-TIBOR price-fixing case, Reuters, the Financial Post and others are reporting that RBS has successfully obtained a stay in the Ontario Superior Court to produce documents under section 11 orders obtained by the Competition Bureau.
This ongoing investigation, also involving antitrust enforcement agencies in the United States, Europe, Japan and Switzerland, involves allegations that a number of global banks coordinated to fix interbank lending rates, including the Tokyo interbank offered rate or “TIBOR”.
The essence of the investigation appears to be whether alleged manipulations of interbank lending rates, if true, adversely affected the price of derivative and other financial products, such as credit default swaps, mortgages, etc.
This development is rather interesting given, among other things, that while compulsory production orders obtained by the Bureau (both search warrants and “section 11 orders”) have been challenged on many past occasions, including a number of constitutional challenges, they have largely been unsuccessful.
“A report that someone is under investigation or that they have been arrested for, or charged with, a criminal offence is not considered the ‘equivalent of saying that the person has committed the crime unless there is something in the language of the report that suggests the plaintiff’s guilt’ … However, reports of arrest or charges will be capable of conveying a defamatory meaning, ‘where it is stated, either directly or by clear implication, that an offence has been committed, and the qualifications contained in any of the surrounding statements are not sufficient to outweigh or nullify the effect of what appears to be a plain statement of fact’”.
(Ontario Court of Appeal in TPG Technology Consulting Ltd. v. Canada (Industry Canada) 2012 ONCA 87 (Ont. C.A.))
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: contact.
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February 26, 2012
In December 2010 Canada’s new anti-spam legislation was passed (the “Anti-spam Act”) which will, when it comes into force, be one of the strictest anti-spam regimes in the world (see: Anti-spam Act). The Anti-spam Act will require express or implied consent for the sending of “commercial electronic messages” or “CEMs” and also impose form (i.e., disclosure) and unsubscribe requirements for CEMs.
The web can prove to be a morass of information. Sifting through the many developments, even in narrower specialties such as competition/antirust and advertising law, is increasingly challenging.
Having said that, we like to mention some particularly worthwhile sites, books and articles in our fields – in this regard, one very fine site we like is Competition Policy International (www.competitionpolicyinternational.com). CPI’s site must surely be the leading and most comprehensive online source for global competition law and policy developments and well worth visiting (often).
Our friends at CPI have also been kind enough to list us in their Blog o’Blogs several times now, including it seems in December for one of our notes regarding remarks by the Commissioner of Competition in Vancouver (see: December Blog o’ Blogs).
It seems we were a little slow to make it to that page, but thank you CPI!
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For more information about our regulatory law services contact: contact
For more regulatory law updates follow us on Twitter: @CanadaAttorney
“While the Nation has forbidden monopoly by one set of laws it has been creating them by another. Patent laws, valuable as they may be in some respects, often father monopoly.”
(Robert H. Jackson, The Struggle Against Monopoly)
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“Now, patents are not monopolies, as the counsel have all said, because a monopoly is that which segregates that which was common before, and gives it to one person or to a class, for use or profit; a patent is that which brings out from the realm of mind something that never existed before, and gives it to the country. And when we consider the priceless blessings which have accrued to our land, by the intellect and ingenuity of the country in this department, we feel almost lost in wonder at the vastness of the interests which have been created by the ingenuity of the country, and the immense amount now invested, in this department of property.”
(Singer v. Walmsley, 22 F. Cas. 207 (C.C. Md. 1860) (No. 12,900))
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“The final cause of law is the welfare of society.”
(Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process)
____________________
For more information about our regulatory law services contact: contact
For more regulatory law updates follow us on Twitter: @CanadaAttorney
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: contact.
************
In December 2010 Canada’s new anti-spam legislation was passed (the “Anti-spam Act”) which will, when it comes into force, be one of the strictest anti-spam regimes in the world (see: Anti-spam Act). In general, the Anti-spam Act will require express or implied consent for the sending of “commercial electronic messages” or “CEMs” and also impose form (i.e., disclosure) and unsubscribe requirements for CEMs.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
