In our annual review of Canadian competition and foreign
investment review law, we evaluate how trends in these areas over
the past year will influence practice in the year to come.
Ongoing Impact of COVID-19 on the Competition Bureau's
Enforcement
The enforcement of competition law in Canada has been affected
by the widespread social, health and economic impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The Competition Bureau (Bureau) issued several
statements during the course of 2020 on the effect of the pandemic
on its enforcement policies and processes. We expect many of these
statements to remain relevant well into 2021.
In April 2020, for example, the Bureau released a statement on
competitor collaborations clarifying that "in circumstances
where there is a clear imperative for companies to be collaborating
in the short-term to respond to the [COVID-19] crisis, where those
collaborations are undertaken and executed in good faith and do not
go further than what is needed,
