Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50883
CLOSING • A roundup of legal department news and trends No ordinary card game Baseball card maker The Topps Company, Inc. announced they have struck an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball to be the only cards licensed to have team logos. "Generations of baseball fans have grown more connected to the game through collecting baseball cards," said MLB commissioner Bud Selig. "We look forward to partnering with Topps to restore baseball cards as the game's pre- miere collectable." According to the Am Law Daily, Topps main competitor The Upper Deck Company – a sports card franchise which began in the late- 1980s is reviewing the deal for antitrust implications. But Upper Deck might not want to yell foul just yet. It seems major league sports in the U.S. may be all but exempt from antitrust cases. The first such pro-professional sports decision was in 1922 when the U.S. Supreme Court established a common-law exemption for the MLB in antitrust cases. That deci- sion was reaffirmed in 1972. Topps were labelled as O-Pee- Chee during the 1980s and early 1990s in Canada, basically the same card in appearance. However, O-Pee-Chee cards are bilingual. Interim tags removed for Shepherd and Aitken A pair of familiar faces have been ap- pointed to head up the Office of the Commissioner of Competition and the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada. Lobbying Commissioner Karen Shepherd and Competition Commis- sioner Melanie Aitken have had the interim tag removed from their titles. Aitken was serving in the interim role since January after replac- ing former commissioner Sheridan Scott who joined Bennett Jones LLP in March. Prior to January, Aitken served as the senior deputy commis- sioner, mergers. Aitken joined the office in 2005 af- ter, ironically, leaving a partnership at Bennett Jones, where she practised commercial and competition litigation. Shepherd served as interim commissioner of lobbying from July 2008 until she was appointed commissioner of lobbying at the end of June 2009. She previously held the position of director of investigations and deputy reg- istrar in the office of the registrar of lobbyists from 2004 to 2008. Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken E-mail ideas and questions to: kharris@clbmedia.ca For weekly INHOUSE news and updates go to: www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse Ottawa lawyer to head WTA Tour David Shoemaker has been named as the new president of the Sony Er- icsson Women's Tennis Association Tour. The Ottawa native joined the WTA in 2004 as general counsel and was promoted to chief operating officer and general counsel two years later. Prior to joining the WTA, Shoe- maker was a corporate and com- mercial litigator at New York law firms 46 • OCTOBER 2009 Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, and then Proskauer Rose LLP. While with Proskauer, Shoemaker specialized in sports-client represen- tation as an adviser to both leagues and teams. His clientele included the National Hockey League, Association of Ten- nis Professionals, Major League Soc- cer, the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, and Major INHOUSE League Baseball's Florida Marlins. Shoemaker is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario law school and in 1996 worked as a law clerk to Antonio Lamer, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Can- ada. Former president Stacey Allaster of Toronto, was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of the WTA tour.