Bill C-19 Dies as Canadian Federal Election is Called
With the fall of Canada's Liberal minority government on November 28, 2005, Bill C-19, An Act to Amend the Competition Act and to Make Other Consequential Amendments, died on the order paper. While the outcome of the January 23, 2006 federal election is unclear, re-introduction of the Bill in 2006 seems likely. Meanwhile, on October 6, 2005, the Government had announced amendments that would have increased the criminal fines for anti-competitive conspiracies from a current maximum of CDN$10 million to a maximum of CDN$25 million per indictment. The new proposals would also have provided the Commissioner of Competition with the authority to conduct broad-ranging studies of competition in a market - even when she does not believe there are grounds for an order pursuant to the Competition Act.
Bill C-19 was originally introduced to Parliament in the Fall of 2004, and was under review by the House Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology since that time.
The newly introduced amendments were in addition to those initially proposed in Bill C-19, which included, among other things, proposals to:
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repeal the existing criminal provisions in the Competition Act dealing with price discrimination, predatory pricing and discriminatory promotional allowances; and
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enable the Competition Tribunal to order the payment of an administrative monetary penalty up to a maximum of CDN$10 million (first order) or CDN $15 million (subsequent orders) under the abuse of dominance provisions of the Competition Act.
