Publication
Keeping your dawn raid guidance current
Unannounced inspections or ‘dawn raids’ are used by antitrust authorities to obtain evidence when there are suspicions that individuals or businesses have infringed the antitrust rules.
Author:
Global | Publication | May 2016
The Competition Tribunal ruled in favour of the Commissioner of Competition in the ongoing abuse of dominance case against the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).1
The TREB is a trade association whose members include most real estate agents in Toronto. It restricts how its members can provide information to their customers, which the commissioner argued is an abuse of dominance contrary to section 79 of the Competition Act.
In April 2013 the tribunal concluded that because TREB’s actions did not affect competitors, its conduct did not fall within the scope of section 79.2The decision was appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal, which found that the tribunal’s interpretation of a leading dominance case, Canada Pipe,3was incorrect, and as a result the court ordered the tribunal to reconsider its decision on the merits.4 Additional background information, and our commentary on the tribunal and Federal Court of Appeal’s decision, is available online.
The tribunal determined that the commissioner established the three elements of section 79:
Importantly for the commissioner’s ongoing discussions of innovation and the digital economy, the tribunal noted that the anti-competitive effects include “a considerable adverse impact on innovation, quality and the range of residential real estate brokerage services.”5
Publication
Unannounced inspections or ‘dawn raids’ are used by antitrust authorities to obtain evidence when there are suspicions that individuals or businesses have infringed the antitrust rules.
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