The International Competition Network’s (ICN) 2012 Annual Conference has wrapped up and the ICN has posted copies of the papers, chapters and other conference materials including in relation to the ICN’s Advocacy, Cartel, Mergers and Unilateral Working Groups.
Canada-related materials include a summary of the Canadian Competition Bureau’s information sharing mechanisms (see: Cartel Working Group – Charts Summarizing Information Sharing Mechanisms) and discussions of some of the Bureau’s criminal enforcement efforts (see: Cartel Working Group – Anti-Cartel Enforcement Manual).
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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April 24, 2012
In anticipation of Canada’s new Anti-spam Act coming into force, the federal Government has launched another tool for Canadian consumers and businesses – a “Fight Spam Quiz”. The quiz (or rather quizzes – one for consumers and another for businesses and organizations) include questions about scareware, phishing, Wi-Fi and security, spambots, malware, spam, viruses, corporate Internet and e-mail usage policies, VPNs (virtual private networks) and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. To take the quiz see: Fight Spam Quiz
Earlier today, the Retail Council of Canada (RCC) issued a news release and its submission to the Standing Committee on National Finance regarding retail pricing in Canada. The Committee commenced a study of the reasons for price differences in Canada and the United States last fall, and has heard from a wide spectrum of witnesses, including from government (the Competition Bureau, Canadian Heritage, Transport Canada, CBSA and Department of Finance), the private sector, academics and industry associations and groups.
In addressing the Committee, the RCC’s President Diane Brisebois urged them to “help set the record straight about the real causes of price differences in Canada versus the United States”.
According to the RCC, Canadian retailers are confronted by the following factors that impact retail pricing in Canada: (i) import duties on finished goods, (ii) supply management affecting food product prices (i.e., marketing boards that impact the prices of dairy, poultry and other products), (iii) vendor pricing (i.e., higher prices for Canadian retailers) and (iv) regulatory harmonization (e.g., in the book industry, in relation to which the RCC said Canada was the “poster child” for regulation leading to higher book prices). The RCC particularly emphasized existing “outdated” tariffs for adversely impacting Canadian retail prices.
The RCC’s submission discusses, among other things, the Canadian retail industry and suggested areas for government action (in relation to country pricing, duty remission on imported consumer goods, supply management and regulatory harmonization/red tape reduction).
Interestingly, the RCC did not address any competition or marketplace concentration issues in its submission, which is interesting given the high level of consolidation in many Canadian industries (including in some retail segments), except to comment on increased foreign competition:
The U.S. Department of Justice issued remarks today by Assistant Attorney General (Antitrust Division) Sharis Pozen to the Brookings Institution.
Ms. Pozen’s remarks focus on the “reinvigorated antitrust enforcement” under President Obama in the past three years, including the Antitrust Division’s challenges of mergers (57 mergers challenged, including Tickemaster/Live Nation, H&R Block/TaxAct, AT&T/T-Mobile and the proposed acquisition of NYSE Euronext by NASDAQ OMX Group and IntercontinentalExchange) and criminal price-fixing and bid-rigging cases, including the air cargo, municipal bonds, automobile parts, LCD panel and e-book cases (244 criminal cases with more than $2 billion in fines and 80,000 days of jail time).
The American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law has launched a very interesting (if perhaps appealing only to competition/antitrust geeks) collection of video interviews with and speeches by some of the leading U.S. antitrust practitioners, enforcement officials and bench. Included are Anne Bingaman, Terry Calvani, Judge Frank Easterbrook, Eleanor Fox, William Kovacic, Tim Muris, Robert Pitofsky and Judge Richard Posner, among others.
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.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
