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ARTICLE · 21 APRIL 2026

Ex Parte, Not Carte Blanche: The FCA Pushes Back On Overbroad Section 11 Requests

McCarthy Tétrault
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The Federal Court of Appeal recently upheld limits on the Competition Bureau's investigative powers, ruling that production orders under the Competition Act must be reasonable in scope and cannot be excessively broad or burdensome. This decision arose from the Bureau's investigation into Amazon's handling of fake product reviews, where the court rejected a data request covering billions of products as insufficiently justified and disproportionate.

CanadaAntitrust/Competition Law
Nikiforos Latrou
Nikiforos Latrou
Samantha L. Steeves
Samantha L. Steeves
Benjamin Brown
Benjamin Brown
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Nobody can credibly disagree that the Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) should be able to obtain market information to further its investigations. But when those requests become unreasonable – seeking, for example, data fields involving billions of products – limits must be set and the Bureau must respect those limits.

The courts recently conveyed that message to the Bureau, when the Federal Court of Appeal (“FCA”) dismissed the Commissioner of Competition’s (the “Commissioner”) appeal over the Federal Court’s refusal to grant part of a section 11 production order against Amazon.com.ca, ULC and Amzn Mobile LLC (collectively, “Amazon”). The decisions confirm that production orders under the Competition Act (the “Act”) are not carte blanche – they remain discretionary and must be reasonable in scope.

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