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ARTICLE · 18 DECEMBER 2024

The Next Frontier In Competition Litigation: Greenwashing Disputes And Private Access To The Competition Tribunal

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2024 has been a year of change for competition law in Canada. As in 2023, Parliament passed a number of amendments to the Competition Act (the Act), which are either already in force or will come into force in June 2025.

CanadaEnvironment
Colette Koopman
Colette Koopman
James Gotowiec
James Gotowiec
Linda Plumpton
Linda Plumpton
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2024 has been a year of change for competition law in Canada. As in 2023, Parliament passed a number of amendments to the Competition Act (the Act), which are either already in force or will come into force in June 2025. In this article, we discuss two amendments that will almost certainly lead to litigation: provisions targeting "greenwashing", and those changing the test for private parties to bring cases before the Competition Tribunal.

Greenwashing

The new provisions in the Competition Act targeting greenwashing came into effect at the end of June 2024 (our colleagues covered the changes in depth in a previous bulletin)1. The provisions, added to the part of the Act which deals with deceptive marketing, place an additional onus on those making claims about the benefits of their products or services in relation to protecting or restoring the environment, or mitigating the causes or effects of climate change. Statements related to a product's environmental

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