Following the Canadian Competition Bureau’s recent update of its competitor collaboration guidelines, Global Competition Review featured Davies partner Anita Banicevic for her insights on the implications of the draft guidelines, which are intended to help businesses avoid unintentionally breaching rules that prohibit anticompetitive collaboration.

In the article (available to subscribers), Anita remarks that the draft guidance may signal a more aggressive position to be taken by the Canadian Competition Bureau on vertical agreements between suppliers and resellers – one that is not necessarily supported by jurisprudence in Canada.

She notes that the existing guidelines clarify that the bureau will not seek to apply criminal provisions to vertical agreements, whereas the new draft guidance contains “qualifiers that would introduce significant uncertainty without identifying any supporting jurisprudence or providing an explanation for the changes.”