Annual Report of the Commissioner of Competition for the year ending March 31, 2005

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Appendix III : Conferences and Seminars

Conferences

From March 29 to April 2, 2004, Bureau representatives attended the Toronto Police Service Fraud Conference in Toronto to discuss the issue of cross-border fraud.

On April 14, 2004, a Bureau official gave a presentation at the Insight Conference in Toronto on mergers and acquisitions, and antitrust and other regulatory approvals.

On April 14, 2004, a Bureau representative gave a presentation to the Groupe Réseau de crédit in Montréal on Canada’s competition laws and when a company’s credit policy could become the subject of a Bureau examination.

On April 29, 2004, a Bureau representative gave a presentation, "Competitive Effects Analysis: What’s New in the Draft Revised Merger Enforcement Guidelines", at the Competition Law and Policy Forum held at Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario.

From May 5 to 7, 2004, a Bureau representative attended the Northern Ontario Fraud Investigators Partnership Initiative conference in Sault Ste. Marie and gave an overview of the Competition Act and the Bureau.

From May 25 to 27, 2004, a Bureau representative attended the Operation Roaming Charge Symposium in Chicago (sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice) and presented an overview of the Competition Act and the Bureau.

From June 4 to 6, 2004, Bureau representatives attended the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Economics Association. Presentations at the conference included "Information and Winning: Evidence from the Canadian Treasury Auction", "An Economic Analysis of Compulsory Licences for Needed Medicines", and "Buying Power and Strategic Interactions". The meeting covered several areas related to competition, including horizontal mergers, market power, competition in the financial services market, collusion, economic analysis of price discrimination, and regulatory convergence between Canada and the U.S.

From June 27 to 30, 2004, a Bureau representative attended the 29th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators in San Diego. The representative participated as a speaker in a panel discussion, Cross Border Fraud: New Challenges.

From July 11 to 15, 2004, a Bureau representative participated as the Canadian technical advisor on packaging and labelling requirements at the 89th National Conference on Weights and Measures, held in Pittsburgh. The theme of the conference was Recognition Through Transparency.

On August 16, 2004, a Bureau official spoke about the Bureau’s role in competition law administration and enforcement at the annual meeting of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association in Winnipeg.

From October 6 to 8, 2004, Bureau representatives attended the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network semi-annual meeting in London, England. The theme of the meeting was Delivering Seamless Global Enforcement. Bureau representatives gave a presentation entitled Fraud Prevention and Awareness. On October 12, a Bureau representative participated in a best practices session on fraud prevention and awareness.

On October 15, 2004, a Bureau official participated in a panel on merger review in the Americas at the American Bar Association’s International Law Section Fall Meeting in Houston.

On October 20 and 21, 2004, a Bureau representative was a moderator and presenter at the International Competition Network’s Investigative Techniques Workshop in Brussels.

On November 10, 2004, a Bureau representative spoke at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax about the Precious Metals Marking Act.

In November 2004, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the Bureau presented a paper at the International Competition Network Leniency Workshop in Sydney, Australia, called "Making Leniency Work: Living with Bifurcation". Bureau representatives were also panellists at the Network’s Cartel Workshop, addressing the topics of searches, leniency and interview techniques.

On November 29, 2004, a Bureau representative gave a presentation at the 7th Annual Insight Advertising and Marketing Law Conference in Toronto. The title of the presentation was "Making the Case for Compliance: A Recap of Recent Developments in the Fair Business Practices Branch".

On November 30, 2004, a Bureau official was a panellist at a meeting of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in Ottawa and spoke about merger review in broadcasting transactions.

On December 1, 2004, a Bureau representative gave a presentation to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Trade Commission in Arlington, Virginia. The subject of the presentation was the 2004 Consumer Fraud Forum. On December 1, 2004, a Bureau official spoke about the role of the Bureau to the Radio Advisory Board of Canada in Ottawa.

On December 16, 2004, Bureau representatives gave a presentation in Gatineau to a delegation from the Competition Administration Department of the Ministry of Trade of Vietnam. The presentation provided an overview of the Bureau’s mandate and enforcement of the provisions relating to multi-level marketing schemes.

On January 26, 2005, a Bureau representative gave a presentation to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in Washington on the mandate and structure of the Bureau’s Fair Business Practices Branch.

From February 8 to 11, 2005, representatives from the Bureau and Department of Justice attended the International White Collar Crime and Telemarketing Fraud Conference in Columbia, North Carolina. A Bureau official gave a presentation on the Competition Bureau, Competition Act and Canadian law.

On February 15, 2005, a Bureau representative presented a paper at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Working Party 3 meeting in Paris on the subject of cross-border remedies in merger review.

On March 3, 2005, a Bureau representative gave a presentation on merger review to the University of British Columbia’s graduate class in economics in Vancouver.

From March 9 to 11, 2005, Bureau representatives attended the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. The theme of the meeting was the "Continued Delivery of Seamless Global Enforcement". A Bureau official presented an overview and preliminary assessment of Fraud Awareness Month.

On March 16, 2005, Bureau representatives attended Scam Jam in Vancouver, an annual event on preventing and protecting against scams. Bureau representatives gave a presentation entitled "Fraud: Recognize It, Report It, Stop It".

On March 24, 2005, a senior Bureau official gave a presentation to the competition law class at the University of Western Ontario on the subject of merger review.

Seminars

On April 21, 2004, Professor Greg Shaffer from the University of Rochester gave a seminar entitled "Upfront Payments and Exclusion in Downstream Markets".

On May 10, 2004, Professor Gautam Gowrisankaran from the University of Washington gave a seminar entitled "The Welfare Consequences of ATM Surcharges: Evidence from a Structural Entry Mode"l.

On June 11, 2004, the Bureau organized a round table in Ottawa on tacit collusion as applied to mergers and joint abuse of dominance. Aidan Hollis, the 2003–2004 holder of the Bureau’s T. D. MacDonald Chair in Industrial Economics, chaired the round table. Speakers included expert antitrust economists such as Dr. Andrew Dick, Professor Kai-Uwe Kuhn, Valerie Rabassa, Professor Tom Ross and Dr. David Scheffman. They spoke on topics such as the general principles of collusion, the U.S. approach to responding to collusion and the role of mavericks, the role of asymmetries in facilitating and hindering collusion, and the Canadian approach to responding to tacit collusion.

On September 10, 2004, Michael Brady, an associate from the law firm Miller & Chevalier, gave a seminar to the Bureau on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Empagran case.

On September 17, 2004, Professor Zhiqi Chen from Carleton University, and current holder of the T. D. MacDonald Chair in Industrial Economics, gave a seminar to the Bureau entitled "Monopoly and Product Diversity: The Role of Retailer Countervailing Power".

On October 14 and 15, 2004, Professor Timothy Brennan from the Policy Sciences and Economics Department at the University of Maryland in Baltimore gave two seminars to the Bureau: "Saving Section 2 of the Sherman Act" and "Verizon v. Trinko".

On January 12, 2005, Dr. John Baldwin and Dr. Wulong Gu from the Micro-economic Analysis Division at Statistics Canada presented a research paper to the Competition Bureau called "Industrial Competition, Shifts in Market Share and Productivity Growth".

On February 28, 2005, Professor Ralph Winter from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia presented a paper to the Bureau entitled "Price-Matching Guarantees".