Competition / Anti-Trust
Competition laws affect many of the activities carried on by businesses today. Our lawyers regularly provide clients with transactional and day-to-day advice on a wide variety of competition law issues and, when required, represent clients in their dealings with the Canadian Competition Bureau and the Competition Tribunal.
Our services include:
Advertising and Marketing
The misleading advertising, labelling, and deceptive marketing practices provisions of the Competition Act regulate the manner in which businesses can market and sell their products and services to customers. We provide advice and assistance to clients in designing and implementing advertising and promotional initiatives in compliance with the Competition Act and other applicable laws.
Compliance Programs
We assist clients with the design and implementation of in-house programmes to ensure compliance with Canadian competition laws.
Distribution and Pricing Practices
Distribution and supply contracts, and practices such as price maintenance, price discrimination, promotional allowances, tied selling, and refusal to supply may lead to criminal prosecution, private civil action or review by the Canadian Competition Tribunal. We advise clients on the competition law implications of these types of business practices and assist them with the structuring and negotiation of business relationships that will be in compliance with Canadian competition laws.
Merger Review
We provide advice and representation to clients involved in merger transactions, including negotiated acquisitions, take-over bids, joint ventures and strategic alliances. We have represented clients seeking to either advance or to oppose a merger in a variety of industries, including mining, financial services, banking, chemicals, consumer products, and real estate.
We work with clients at all stages of a merger transaction to:
- coordinate with counsel in other jurisdictions to identify potential antitrust/competition filing requirements in those jurisdictions
- determine the applicability and impact of the Competition Act on a proposed transaction
- prepare pre-merger notifications, advance ruling certificate and advisory opinion requests
- structure the transaction to maximize the prospects of receiving competition law clearance
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