The following are a few developments from our friends at the Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL):
Winners of the Ronald St. John Macdonald Award
CCIL extends its congratulations to the two student winners of the Ronald St. John Macdonald award: Andréanne Charpentier-Garant (Graduate category) and Alix Tolliday (Undergraduate category). Ms. Charpentier-Grant recently concluded her LLM at Utrecht University, having completed her undergraduate law degree at UQAM. Alix Tolliday is completing a JD at the University of Victoria. Congratulations to both – it was no small thing to win this award, given the quality of the roughly 50 papers we received. (Some good summer reading.)
Both will now present their papers at the CCIL annual conference Nov 8-11. In relation to that conference, we would certainly welcome your registration. Many have already registered and thank you if you are among them. We are looking forward to a terrific event with many notable speakers, including Philippe Sands QC. More information is on the preliminary program at www.ccil-ccdi.ca/ccil-program/.
Canadian Yearbook of International Law
On behalf of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law, I would like to bring to your attention the Yearbook’s Call for Papers for its next volume. That call has been posted on the CCIL website at bit.ly/T4Iggb. I hope you will consider publishing in this excellent venue.
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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October 10, 2012
On October 10, 2012, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “CRTC”) issued new guidelines on Canada’s anti-spam legislation (the Guidelines on the interpretation of the Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations (CRTC) (“Interpretation Guidelines”) and Guidelines on the use of toggling as a means of obtaining express consent under Canada’s anti-spam legislation) (“Toggling Guidelines”). These are the first of a series of CRTC guidelines to be issued to facilitate compliance with Canada’s upcoming anti-spam legislation.
Upcoming Canadian Bar Association National Competition Law Section Events:
1. The Reviewable Matters/Unilateral Conduct Committee of the CBA’s National Competition Law Section and the The Pricing Conduct Committee of the International Committee of the ABA Section of Antitrust Law present: Canadian Pricing Law – Wednesday, October 24, 2012 – 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET – 9:00 – 10:30 am PT – Details and Registration.
2. The Economics & Law Committee of the CBA’s Competition Law Section and the ABA’s Economics Committee present: Recent Developments in Two-Sided Markets in US and Canada – Tuesday, October 30, 2012 – 12:00-1:15 pm ET – 9:00-10:15 PT – Details and Registration.
3. The Criminal Matters Committee of the CBA’s Competition Law Section and the ABA Section of International Law present: Cartel Enforcement in Smaller Jurisdictions – Issues and Challenges – November 6, 2012 (1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) – Details and Registration.
For more information see: National Competition Law Section.
The National Competition Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association has published a new issue of its Competition Law Review (which is now also available in a searchable format online).
This new issue includes articles on The Competition Act of 1986, Competitor Agreements: Interpreting Criminal Conspiracy in a Blended Criminal-Civil Regime, Section 36 of the Competition Act, Abuse of Dominance in Canada: Reflections on 25 Years of Section 79 Enforcement, The Treatment of Vertical Price Restraints under the Competition Act, The Evolution of Vertical Distribution Practices under the Competition Act, 25 Years of Merger Review in Canada, The Evolution of Canada’s Pre-Merger Notification Regime (1986-2012), Foreign Investment Screening under Canada’s Investment Canada Act, Misleading Advertising and Deceptive Marketing Practices under the Federal Competition Act, A Quarter Century of the Competition Tribunal and Economics and Canadian Competition Policy.
From the CBA:
“Volume 25, Issue 2 is a special edition devoted to a retrospective on 25+ years of the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act. Leading members of the bar, including four former Commissioners, have authored high quality papers taking an in-depth look at the substantive and procedural development of those statutes. We trust that you will find them informative, thought-provoking and enjoyable.”
For a copy see: Canadian Competition Law Review (Fall 2012)
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Guest post by Jacob Kojfman (Vancouver Tech Law Blog)
This past summer, I wrote about how slow the law is to catch up to changing technologies. Companies, such as private-limousine operator Uber and Airbnb are finding their attempts to disrupt their industries to be faced with legal challenges.
By its very nature, innovation will always be one step ahead of the law; most laws are usually written as a reaction to some change in the markets. Even old-fangled laws, such as Glass-Steagall, or the more contemporaneous Dodd-Frank legislation, were a result of changes in the market, albeit, not necessarily innovations.
For those companies, such as Uber, Airbnb, Getaround, their founders have all tried to solve a problem that was facing them; and in certain instances, there’s been a lot of hiccups along the way. Getaround couldn’t operate until it finally got an insurance company to agree to insure it, which also required a change in the laws regarding insurance.
Earlier today, the European Commission published a summary decision announcing the parties and imposing more than 82 million Euros in penalties against nine firms involved in a price-fixing cartel for mountings for windows and window doors.
According to the EC, the parties operated a cartel spanning the whole of the EEA in which they agreed on common price increases for mountings for windows and window doors, which was in place from late 1999 until mid-2007. Also according to the EC, the cartel involved coordination through trade association activities:
“At the occasion of meetings of associations in Germany in November of each year the parties regularly agreed to increase prices by coordinating the amount (percentage or percentage range) and date of the envisaged price increase. There was a common understanding that the price increase agreed for Germany at these meetings was to be applied in the entire EEA, with adaptations to the specific situation of each country to the extent necessary. In addition to the main meetings in Germany in November, regional representatives met to discuss the application of the agreed price increase to their respective territory.”
The vast majority of trade and professional associations (and their activities) serve many legitimate purposes, including promoting common interests to the public, lobbying and advocacy, research, member education and the promotion and improvement of product standards. However, because association activities by definition involve the interaction of direct competitors, they can in some cases raise serious competition law concerns under competition laws, including the Competition Act.
Materials from the 2nd International Competition Law Forum held on September 27, 2012 are being uploaded now. Speakers included the Vice-President, Commissioner of Competition for the European Commission (Joaquin Almunia), private practitioners, the head of the Competition Division of the OECD’s Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs (John Davies), head of the Antitrust and Mergers Unit of the EC (Kris Dekesyser) and UNCTAD and OECD officials. For more information and copies of the conference materials see: 2nd International Competition Law Forum.
A few new Canadian competition, advertising and regulatory law books caught my eye recently including:
The Canadian Marketing Law Handbook, 2nd ed. (H. Lue & S. Punniyamoorthy) (Carswell). See: Carswell – Newly Published.
There are several forms of intellectual property law that are associated with marketing and advertising law. These include patents, trade-marks, copyright and industrial designs. Generally, trade-mark and copyright law have had the most impact when it comes to marketing and advertising issues. The introductory chapters discuss various types of intellectual property law. The remaining chapters provide an IP perspective on advertising and marketing issues including the personality rights, comparative advertising, grey marketing and counterfeit goods, pharmaceutical advertising, Quebec advertising, advertising standards, packaging, Internet advertising and ambush marketing. Canadian Marketing Law Handbook, Second Edition provides a practical handbook as well as an update on the possible remedies that can be used by the legal practitioner in cases involving advertising and marketing issues.
Defamation Law: A Primer (R.E. Brown) (Carswell). See: Carswell – Newly Published.
Defamation Law: A Primer provides basic and concise coverage of the substantive law of defamation. Raymond E. Brown, the author of The Law of Defamation in Canada, 2nd Edition, articulates both the diversity and similarity of the common law of defamation in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. He has included the leading decisions in each of these countries, and quotes extensively from leading jurists. This book also includes a chapter outlining the impact of the United States constitution on the law of defamation, as well as a chapter devoted to recommending a variety of changes in the law.
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
