The takeover law that has Bay Street rattled, complicating the Rogers-Shaw merger and HSBC Canada’s auction

  • 📰 globeandmail
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 70 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 31%
  • Publisher: 92%

United Kingdom News News

United Kingdom United Kingdom Latest News,United Kingdom United Kingdom Headlines

Amid the Rogers-Shaw merger and HSBC Canada’s auction, Canada’s Commissioner of Competition is again calling on Ottawa to crack down on the so-called efficiencies defence

As it stands, nothing suggests the efficiencies defence will be invoked in either case. But there is always the possibility – especially now the Rogers-Shaw merger is. Theoretically, Rogers and Shaw could use the defence and fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

Much like the originalists who adore the U.S. Constitution, some people view Section 96 as something close to scripture – it is a beautiful thing and doesn’t need to change. Others think the section should be treated more like Canada’s constitution – a living tree that evolves with the times. That’s the commonly accepted view, but Lawson Hunter, Canada’s Competition Commissioner in the 1980s said in an interview there’s more to it. He was one of the act’s architects, and there was a broad goal “to create something that had standards, that had some predictability.” Efficiencies could be proven with an economic model.

Despite the outcry in legal circles, the federal government didn’t pay much attention for a number of years. But then Mr. Boswell started making some hay last fall, and around the same time, Edward Iacobucci, the former dean of the University of Toronto’s faculty of law, put out a deeply researched paper advocating for changes to the Competition Act.

Despite this momentum, which helped prompt Ottawa’s official review of the act, developments in the United States have complicated things. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission – both of which handle antitrust and competition policy – launched their own reviews of the American framework, and there are some arguably radical considerations.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 5. in UK
 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

I’m expecting cell phone bills to climb.

If we had good takeover laws, this merger would.never have been considered by these greedy oligopolists.

United Kingdom United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom United Kingdom Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Small business confidence plummets amid high debt, climbing interest rates: CFIBNew research suggests small business confidence in Canada took nosedive in October, dropping to levels not recorded since early in pandemic.
Source: ottawasuncom - 🏆 4. / 92 Read more »