, because major outlets such as Amazon, Walmart Inc., Loblaw Companies Ltd.’s Shoppers Drug Mart, and airport bookstores do not contribute to the database.Article contentthat the merger would “cede nearly 50 per cent of the market for anticipated top-selling books to the combined firm, which will harm competition by lowering author advances and diminishing output, creativity and diversity.”
Canada’s Competition Bureau probably isn’t looking at the takeover of Simon & Schuster the same way. As per its , the bureau usually will not challenge a merger on the basis of the exercise of unilateral market power where the post-merger market share is below 35 per cent.that suggest the merged parties may be able to exercise market power after a merger. Market power is the ability of a company or companies to act independently of the normal discipline of the market.
Regardless of these risks, the proposed merger between the two book sellers ends up being emblematic of how price effects — the conventional metric used to assess harm under Canadian competition law — may be too narrow to judge the viability and implications of consolidation in publishing.Article content
The case is currently receiving significant media attention in the U.S., but had received very little scrutiny in Canada up until very recently, when The Globe and Mail