Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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15 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE MARCH 2018 B y the standards of any news release, even one by a govern- ment agency, it was short and not very detailed. In the fall of 2015, the federal Competition Bureau stated that charges had been stayed against the final defendants in an alleged chocolate price fixing conspiracy that had first come to its attention eight years earlier. The Bureau noted that the decision to stay charges was made independently by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. "To - day's decision marks the end of the choco- late price-fixing matter. The Bureau contin- ues to investigate allegations of price-fixing and bid rigging in Canada as a top priority," the news release stated. More than two years earlier, price-fixing charges under the Competition Act were laid against three companies and three indi - viduals. The charges were in part based on information provided by Cadbury Canada Inc., which had been granted immunity by the regulator. Hershey Canada Inc. was fined $4 million by an Ontario Superior Court judge, following a recommendation by the Bureau for leniency as a result of the company's cooperation after search war - rants were first executed. No other company or individual was ul- timately sanctioned for what was alleged to be a broad conspiracy to fix the price of chocolate confectionary products in Canada between 2002 and 2008. The same year, 2015, a jury in Ottawa ac - quitted six individuals and three companies on all charges stemming from a Competi- tion Bureau-led investigation into alleged bid rigging for federal government tech- nology contracts. The Crown later stayed charges against five other defendants who had elected a trial by judge alone. Both cases were high-profile disappoint- ments for the Competition Bureau and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Since that time, the Bureau and its com- missioner have made public changes to its organizational structure to try to improve and streamline its investigative process. Reviews were launched of its immunity and leniency programs along with entering into formal partnership agreements with the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police. Last fall, the proposed changes to the im - munity program were made public along with a three-month window for submissions — a time frame that ended in late January of this year. This is just the first stage of a As the Competition Bureau seeks to streamline its investigative process and consider its immunity and leniency programs, should changes be made or is it working just fine? IMMUNITY spotlight IN THE BY SHANNON KARI ILLUSTRATION: STEVE MUNDAY