SCC divided on key issues of copyright law and policy: Grey marketer prevails

Posted on September 21, 2007

Justine Whitehead, D. Jeffrey Brown

On July 26, 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) issued its decision in the case of Kraft Canada Inc. v. Euro Excellence Inc. The SCC allowed the appeal of Euro Excellence, thereby disallowing Kraft Canada's claim of secondary infringement of copyright against Euro Excellence.

While the SCC's decision to allow the appeal was made by a margin of seven to two, a deeply divided SCC produced four sets of reasons in reversing the decisions of both the Federal Court of Appeal (2005 FCA 427) and Federal Court (2004 FC 652). The decision raises interesting questions about the interface of intellectual property and competition law, in particular the extent to which copyright law can and should be used to limit competition from grey-market imports.

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Canada and the EU: Continued Cooperation and Convergence?

Posted on September 20, 2007

An extract from The European Antitrust Review 2008, a Global Competition Review special report.

Susan Hutton

Any discussion of the enforcement cooperation activities of the Canadian Competition Bureau (the Bureau) and the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission (the Commission) must at this stage focus not only on communications between them but also on results. It would appear that after years of working together in both bilateral and multilateral fora on the development of competition law enforcement policies and practices, and of cooperationin the investigation of individual cases, different results are still sometimes apparent. That said, the ultimate goal of consistency and convergence among the agencies can only be achieved through continued such dialogue and cooperation, and overall the glass should likely still be viewed as half full.

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