Find Lawyers in Canada for Competition / Antitrust Law
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Competition / Antitrust Law - Canada
About this Practice Area
Kevin Ackhurst is a partner in the Competition & Foreign Investment Group. He has over 20 years of extensive experience providing timely and practical advice to help businesses navigate the Canadian regulatory processes involved in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic alliances. Kevin advises on civil and criminal competition law matters, including abuse of dominance, cartels, competitor collaborations, mergers, misleading advertising, and pricing and distribution practi...
Pascale Cloutier holds the position of Miller Thomson’s General Counsel. She is also a commercial and civil litigator with specialized expertise in competition and consumer law, product liability, and franchising. As the firm’s General Counsel, Pascale acts as its principal legal counsel and advises the Chair, members of the Executive Committee, and other senior management with respect to matters of firm policy, practice and risk management. She also provides advice and counsel to...
Paul Collins is senior counsel and the former Head of the Competition & Foreign Investment Group in the Toronto office. He practises corporate and commercial law, specializing in the area of competition law, providing both transactional and general compliance advice, as well as advice regarding marketing and advertising law. Paul is also a leading advisor for foreign investors in connection with the Investment Canada Act. His practice puts him in constant contact with the federal Competit...
Eric Dufour has a specialized competition law practice with expertise in foreign investment review. He provides transactional, litigation, and general compliance advice under the Competition Act (Canada) and the Investments Canada Act . Eric has acted in both civil and criminal matters under the Competition Act (Canada), including: reviewing mergers and strategic alliances as well as preparing pre-merger notifications, requests for advance rulings, and competitive impact submissions; advising...
Chris Hersh is a business law partner based in Toronto and the Canadian head of our antitrust and competition practice. Chris provides strategic counsel to clients on all aspects of competition law, including mergers and acquisitions, criminal matters, abuse of dominance, marketing and advertising, as well as pricing and distribution issues. He also regularly works with international clients to obtain approvals under the "net benefit," national security and cultural sector review provisions o...
Lawson Hunter is one of Canada’s renowned regulatory and government relations counsel, drawing on a wide range of experience in business, government and private practice. Most recently, Lawson was awarded the Order of Canada for his distinguished career in government, business and private practice as one of the country's leading competition and antitrust lawyers. In 2017, he was awarded the Order of Ottawa for his significant contributions to the City of Ottawa. In 2016, he was the reci...
Susan Hutton is a senior partner in the Competition & Foreign Investment Group. She provides Competition Act and Investment Canada Act advice in respect of complex mergers and acquisitions and has led the approval process for numerous high-profile transactions. She provides clients with ongoing compliance advice and has guided clients through civil and criminal investigations, as well as complaints under the Competition Act. Susan is recognized as a leading lawyer by Chambers Global and C...
Katherine Kay is a partner in the Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Competition & Foreign Investment Groups. She has served on the Partnership Board and Executive Committee, as well as the Management Committee in the Toronto office. Katherine leads the competition litigation group and her practice is concentrated on complex commercial litigation, often involving the interplay between regulatory, civil and criminal law regimes, and across multiple jurisdictions. Chambers Global has d...
Michael Kilby is a partner and Head of the Competition & Foreign Investment Group. He is a leading advisor on matters relating to Canadian competition and foreign investment laws, and has wide-ranging experience in complex merger reviews, foreign investment approvals, national security reviews, pricing and distribution practices, misleading advertising, anti-corruption and related counselling matters across a broad spectrum of industries. Michael has been involved in some of the most impo...
Eliot Kolers is Head of the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group and a member of the Management Committee and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee in the Toronto office. His practice concentrates on corporate commercial litigation, securities litigation and competition litigation. He has represented clients in a wide range of complex cases, including many expedited litigation matters in relation to contested corporate transactions. Eliot has defended class actions involving compet...
Mike Laskey is a partner in the Competition & Foreign Investment Group. His practice focuses on the review of transactions under the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act. Under the Competition Act, Mike regularly advises clients on the competition law risks of complex and high-profile transactions. Mike leads competition law reviews of some of the most involved transactions in Canada. Mike works with the Competition Bureau to resolve difficult and novel competition issues and neg...
Chris Margison has over 20 years of private and public sector legal experience, including as Special Advisor to both the Commissioner of Competition and the Senior Deputy Commissioner, Cartels Directorate at the Competition Bureau. With his background, Chris brings a number of attributes, such as the ability to provide critical advice, guidance and recommendations in a timely fashion on all aspects of Canadian competition law. He has advised the Commissioner, Senior Deputy Commissioners and h...
Shawn Neylan is a partner who advises businesses in relation to business crime laws. He concentrates his practice on Canadian federal regulatory and criminal laws with regard to anti-corruption, national security, economic sanctions, commercial bribery, anti-money laundering and proceeds of crime prohibitions and merger control laws. Shawn’s unusually wide range of experience spans over 30 years conducting internal investigations, litigating competition matters including a merger challe...
Rujuta Patel practises business law and competition law, with a focus on the resources and transportation sectors. She advises on private mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations and restructurings of multinational and Canadian organizations, private placements and a variety of energy-related matters. She works regularly with energy services companies and is experienced in drafting, negotiating and advising on a broad range of services, drilling and engineering contracts. She also ...
Danielle Royal is a partner in the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group and a member of the Management Committee in the Toronto office. Her practice focuses on class actions, complex commercial litigation and competition litigation. Danielle has appeared before all levels of Court in Ontario, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. She has represented clients on several cross-border class actions involving claims of price-fixing and conspiracy, other commercial dispu...
Robert (Rob) Russell is the National Chair of the BLG Competition and Foreign Investment Review Group. He has led some of the most significant cartel cases, abuse of dominance proceedings and contested merger cases in Canada both for private sector companies and for the Competition Bureau. With over 30 years’ experience in Competition law, Rob has been involved in a large number of complex and contested merger reviews in a wide variety of industries.
Jeff Thomas is a partner in the BLG Vancouver office. He has extensive experience providing legal advice in the context of large, complex, multi-party negotiations, as well as within competition law and international trade and investment law. Jeffrey’s practice has a particular emphasis in state-to-state negotiations and dispute settlement, trade policy, domestic trade laws, and economic and trade sanctions, and all manner of issues arising under the Competition Act . His practice also ...
Peter Flynn is an associate in the Competition & Foreign Investment Group. His practice focuses on the review of transactions under the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act. Under the Competition Act, Peter advises on all aspects of competition law, including complex merger review, joint ventures and strategic alliances, criminal and civil investigations, regulatory compliance matters and misleading advertising. Under the Investment Canada Act, Peter advises on economic, cultural...
Competition / Antitrust Law Definition
Broadly speaking, the purpose of Canadian competition law is to provide consumers with competitive prices and product choices. The Competition Act is Canada's principal competition legislation. It is a federal statute that applies throughout the country to all sectors of the economy, with very limited exceptions. The Competition Act is administered by the Competition Bureau, a branch of the federal Department of Industry. The Competition Act contains criminal prohibitions against certain types of activities while other categories of conduct are subject to civil review at the Competition Tribunal or before the courts. Sanctions range from fines to imprisonment to orders prohibiting or prescribing certain conduct.
Competition lawyers in Canada typically provide advice to clients in the following key areas:
- Merger Transactions: The Competition Act requires that transactions over a certain size be notified to the Competition Bureau. The Bureau has the authority to review both notifiable and non-notifiable transactions to determine if they are likely to substantially prevent or lessen competition. Clients will retain competition counsel to advise on these issues. Competition counsel also will provide advice on transaction-related matters such as deal structure and purchase agreement provisions.
- Agreements Among Competitors: The Competition Act makes it a criminal offence for competitors to enter into certain types of agreements (e.g., price fixing and bid-rigging). Other agreements may be subject to civil review if their effect is to substantially prevent or lessen competition. Counsel will be called upon by clients to assess whether proposed collaborations with competitors could be subject to criminal or civil review under these provisions.
- Abuse of Dominance: Parties that "control" a market are prohibited from abusing their "dominance" in such as way as to substantially prevent or lessen competition. Parties that may hold a "dominant" position in a market will retain counsel to advise whether practices such as exclusive arrangements and loyalty rebates could be an issue.
In addition to these principal substantive areas, competition lawyers will become involved on behalf of their clients in a variety of other matters covered by the Competition Act, including designing pricing and distribution programs; dealing with distributor terminations; and setting up advertising campaigns, contests, and other types of promotions. Counsel also will assist clients in related matters such as establishing compliance programs; dealing with Bureau investigations; and litigation (public and private).
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