Aggregate Assessment of Damages Allows Certification of Conspiracy Class Actions, Courts Hold

In two recent decisions, the Ontario Superior Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal relied on the aggregate damages provisions of the Class Proceedings Act in their respective provinces to certify class actions seeking damages for alleged conspiracies to fix prices for hydrogen peroxide and DRAM memory chips. In doing this, both courts side-stepped the requirement in the aggregate damages provisions that liability must be proved before damages can be assessed in the aggregate. A close examination of the decisions suggests, however, that the courts have in effect done away with this statutory requirement.

Competition Law Review

Contributors: Michael Osborne, Sonny Ingram, Jennifer Dyck, and Christian Farahat.

Review of all Canadian Competition Law developments over the last 12 months, plus some US and EU developments, including: Mergers, Criminal, Private Actions, Reviewable Matters, Marketing Practices, The Long Arm of US Antitrust, Across the Pond

Top Stories

• Hard time for hard core cartels
• Class action requirements loosened
• Suncor – Petro-Canada merger gets green light
• Nadeau’s feathers ruffled by Tribunal

The IMAX Case: Superior Court certifies first-ever Ontario shareholder class action for misrepresentations on the secondary market

In a pair of decisions released the same day, Justice Katherine van Rensburg of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice became the first judge to consider the statutory remedy created under section 138.3 of the Ontario Securities Act (the “Act”) for shareholders of public companies who suffer damages from public company misrepresentations on the secondary securities market in documents such as annual financial statements and other public documents.

Competition Tribunal Cases: A Two Year Review

In the last two years, there have been no abuse of dominance cases and one contested merger case, which was dropped. Recently, however, amendments to the Competition Act transfer jurisdiction over some anti-competitive agreements and price maintenance to the Tribunal.

This article reviews the cases in the Tribunal over the last two years and the recent amendments to the Competition Act, as they affect practice in the Tribunal.

Competition Law Review – May 2009

Contributors: Michael Osborne, Sonny Ingram, Sandra Monardo, Michelle Booth, Adam Wygodny, and Donna Wilson.

Top stories
Canada’s new competition law
Budget 2009 includes the most significant amendments to the Competition Act in a generation:
• A new “per se” conspiracy offence makes it illegal for competitors or potential competitors to fix prices, allocate markets, or control production of a product, even if there is no effect on competition…and more…