IM-Andy_2023_0227.pub

Some quick background: The Competition A c t is a federal statute designed to protect the market; the bureau is its law enforcement agency; and the commissioner is its head. [...] In a case involving acquisition of grain elevators, Federal Court Justice Denis Gascon, sitting as a member of the tribunal, found the commission analysis was not “grounded in commercial reality and the evidence” and that the market definition approach advanced by the commissioner “(failed) on the facts, from a precedential and legal standpoint, and from a conceptual and economic perspective.” In. [...] In reviewing the trial evidence, the court highlighted factual findings supported by ample evidence that the transactions would not cross the threshold of likely preventing or lessening competition substantially and that some key aspects of the deal actually promoted competition. [...] And it said it wasn’t even a close case, as it backed up Chief Justice Crampton’s judgment that the commissioner’s approach “would be a foray into fiction and fantasy.” Comments from the bench in three courts to the effect that the commissioner’s theories did not reflect reality, the facts, the evidence, the law or economics, that his proposed course of action was pointless and that his approach w. [...] Addy is Chairman & CEO Advacon Inc., former Commissioner of Competition and a member of the Competition Policy Council at the C.