In two recent decisions, the Ontario Superior Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal relied on the aggregate damages provisions of the Class Proceedings Act in their respective provinces to certify class actions seeking damages for alleged conspiracies to fix prices for hydrogen peroxide and DRAM memory chips. In doing this, both courts side-stepped the requirement in the aggregate damages provisions that liability must be proved before damages can be assessed in the aggregate. A close examination of the decisions suggests, however, that the courts have in effect done away with this statutory requirement. [more] Full article

Contributors: Michael Osborne, Sonny Ingram, Jennifer Dyck, and Christian Farahat. Review of all Canadian Competition Law developments over the last 12 months, plus some US and EU developments, including: Mergers, Criminal, Private Actions, Reviewable Matters, Marketing Practices, The Long Arm of US Antitrust, Across the Pond Top Stories

• Hard time for hard core cartels
• Class action requirements loosened
• Suncor - Petro-Canada merger gets green light
• Nadeau’s feathers ruffled by Tribunal

Contributors: Michael Osborne, Sonny Ingram, Sandra Monardo, Michelle Booth, Adam Wygodny, and Donna Wilson. Top stories Canada’s new competition law Budget 2009 includes the most significant amendments to the Competition Act in a generation: • A new “per se” conspiracy offence makes it illegal for competitors or potential competitors to fix prices, allocate markets, or control production of a product, even if there is no effect on competition...and more... [more] Full article

A proposed class action by purchasers of electronic goods containing DRAM memory chips would degenerate into a series of individual trials, the British Columbia Supreme Court has held in Pro-Sys Consultants Ltd. v. Infineon Technologies AG.2 Key issues, including whether the plaintiffs paid more because of price-fixing by manufacturers of the chips, could not be determined on a class-wide basis. The court thus refused to certify the action as a class proceeding. [more] Full article