Report of the C.D. Howe Institute Competition Policy Council
The Competition Bureau should better define and clarify its legal view on when ordinary business practices or strategic alliances will be treated as offences and subject to civil review or criminal prosecution, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. Otherwise, businesses may be inhibited in their ordinary activities, or inclined to avoid entering strategic agreements with competitors that would be of benefit to Canadian consumers. In addition, the Bureau has not pursued court actions testing the criminal provisions of the recently revised Competition Act, and this may have resulted in harmful price-fixing activities going unchecked. This is the consensus of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council, which held its second meeting November 3, 2011.