Canadian Court Certifies Visa/Mastercard Class Action Critical Takeaways

Yesterday, Chief Justice Bauman released public reasons certifying the Visa/MasterCard price-fixing class actions. Our full update on his decision is available here. But the critical takeaways from his decision are as follows:

1. Plaintiffs can't link non-statutory claims (like tort and restitutionary claims) to breaches of the Competition Act. When the Competition Act makes conduct, such as price-fixing, unlawful, plaintiffs may only pursue remedies for that unlawful conduct under the statutory cause of action in the Competition Act. They cannot also argue that those unlawful acts found causes of action for parasitic tort claims like unlawful means conspiracy, unjust enrichment and waiver of tort.