Contributors: Michael Osborne , Jennifer Cantwell, Paul Emerson, Angela Yadav, Sonny Ingram, and Michael Binetti

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Rona keeps Sherbrooke store
In May, the Competition Tribunal rescinded a September 2003 consent agreement, allowing home improvement retailer Rona Inc. to keep the Sherbrooke , Quebec store it agreed to sell to gain Bureau approval of its acquisition of Réno-Dépot. The Tribunal found that Home Depot’s imminent arrival was a change in the circumstances that led to the consent agreement, and that the agreement would not have been made in the present circumstances. The Tribunal rejected the Commissioner’s arguments that it should refuse to rescind the agreement as a matter of discretion.

The Tribunal’s decision is the first time that the Competition Act’s variation / rescission provision (s. 106) has been applied to a consent agreement. Because consent agreements are negotiated and made by the parties, not the Tribunal, the Tribunal must look to the intentions of the parties. The Tribunal also emphasized that the Commissioner must be responsive to changing circumstances.

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Eli Lilly and Co. v. Apotex Inc. On November 2 2005, the Federal Court of Appeal held that where an agreement to assign a patent increases the assignee’s market power in excess of that inherent in the patent itself, the provision in the Patent Act (s. 50) allowing the assignment does not prevent the agreement [...]

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The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has rejected the latest attempt by foreign plaintiffs to sue in the US for injury caused outside of the US by an alleged worldwide conspiracy to fix the price for certain vitamins.[1] The Empagran case is already familiar to Canadian competition and class action lawyers. [...]

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On January 9, 2006, fine paper distributors Cascades Fine Papers Group Inc., Domtar Inc. and Unisource Canada each pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and were fined $12.5 million each, for a total of $37.5 million, for conspiring to fix the price for carbonless sheets.

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In its recent decision in Chadha v. Bayer Inc., the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the Divisional Court’s refusal to certify a class of indirect purchasers of pigments used to colour bricks. The Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to appeal on July 17, 2003.

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