We offer a Canadian focus with a global perspective. With more than 10 full-time competition/antitrust professionals, our national practice has the strength to handle our clients’ most significant needs through the firm’s offices.
We are ranked in the Global Competition Review GCR 100 as one of Canada’s leading practices, and its members are routinely cited for excellence in major domestic and international peer and industry surveys such as Chambers Global, Who’s Who Legal, Lexpert and others.
Our expertise and experience includes:
• cartel investigations and litigation
• competition related litigation
• merger clearance
• foreign investment advice and reviews under the Investment Canada Act
• distribution, pricing and marketing and advertising
Cartel investigations and competition related litigation
We have provided effective representation and counsel to clients in major international and domestic cartel cases, including LIBOR, air cargo, automotive components, marine shipping, electronic components, retail gas, government contracting, LED traffic lights and polyurethane foam.
Our involvement in matters of significant complexity means that we are familiar with the challenges that are unique to such cases, including multijurisdictional investigations and leniency applications. We are also among the very few Canadian counsel with experience in litigated cartel cases.Our team includes former federal prosecutors with the Canadian Department of Justice, who provide further support to clients in cartel cases.
We also provide comprehensive national defence of competition class actions, many of which follow cartel investigations in Canada or elsewhere. Significant matters include Canada-wide representation of clients in the Canadian air cargo, air passenger, optical disk drives, lithium batteries, smart card chips, automotive components, polyurethane foam, sheet metal and other cases. Our ability to defend clients in these cases is reinforced by the firm’s bench strength in class action work in its offices in Ontario, Québec, British Columbia and Alberta.
BLG routinely represents clients in litigation before the Competition Tribunal in abuse of dominance and merger cases, as well as private damages claims. We routinely assist domestic and foreign clients in responding to Competition Bureau inquiries, including section 11 orders, search warrants and other aspects of the agency’s investigative process.
Merger review
We have successfully cleared some of Canada’s largest and most complex transactions. Our group assists clients in merger notifications, supplementary information requests (SIRs), negotiations of consent agreements with the Canadian Competition Bureau and, where necessary, litigation before the Competition Tribunal. Our industry experience is comprehensive, and includes mergers in the retail, technology, oil & gas, mining, financial services and transportation sectors. Much of our work is multijurisdictional and we routinely work with some of the world’s leading competition law practices in securing Canadian clearance of global transactions.
Foreign investment review
Foreign investment review has become a critical consideration in transactions that involve sensitive sectors, state owned/sovereign foreign investors or which are otherwise high profile. Our lawyers have had experience in navigating the Investment Canada review process in some of the most high profile and precedent setting foreign investments of recent times, including acquisitions made by foreign state owned investors. We also have high level experience in providing strategic representation and counsel with respect to related federal policies and legislation in certain sectors such as telecommunications and cultural businesses.
Distribution, pricing and marketing and advertising
We advise clients on distribution, pricing, and consumer protection matters. Much of our work has been in the retail area, where we act for some of Canada’s leading retailers. We also provide marketing and advertising law representation in collaboration with our national advertising, marketing and sponsorship law practice.
