Stewardship programs have made their mark across Canada and will continue to expand, specialize and become more complex.

In Reinhard Delp v. Fresh Headies Internet Sales Ltd. et al., 2011 FC 1228, the Federal Court considered a motion for summary judgment brought by two of five defendants seeking dismissal of a patent infringement action brought against them.

A consent agreement was filed with the Competition Tribunal on June 28, 2011 whereby Bell Canada, Bell Mobility and Bell ExpressVu (collectively, "Bell") must pay an administrative monetary penalty ("AMP") of $10 MILLION DOLLARS, modify all non-compliant advertisements within 60 days and pay the $100,000 dollars in costs and disbursements incurred by the Competition Bureau (the "Bureau") during the course of its investigation.

The comment period recently closed on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s second round of consideration for its proposed "Guidelines for Highlighted Ingredients and Flavours".

Over the last year, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a set of Guidelines and a Policy Position on online behavioural advertising.

A board member of a condominium corporation recently forwarded me an interesting article from the New York Post about Charlie, an adorable 3.5 pound Yorkie, whose owner was taken to court by the condominium association of a 24-unit development in Queens, New York.

On July 13, 2012, the Federal Court of Appeal released its decision in The Queen v. Peter Sommerer 2012 FCA 207 in favour of the taxpayer.

As of February 1, 2012, most of the amendments to the "Act respecting health services and social services" brought under the "Act to improve the management of the health and social services network" (the former Bill 127) and applicable to institutions will be in force.

The Government of Ontario recently introduced Bill 141, An Act to enact the Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act, 2013 which, if passed, would create substantial opportunities for public-private partnership transactions in the province.

Bottom Line: Bill C-11 ("Copyright Modernization Act") finally received Royal Assent on June 29, 2012, although there is not as yet an in-force date.

Industry Canada released its final regulations to Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) on December 4, 2013.

Bottom Line: In March of this year, the Quebec Superior Court authorized a class action by Quebec members of the Pharmaprix Optimum® Rewards Program.

Now that summer is here many condo residents are enjoying the use of swimming pools which form part of the common facilities available for use by the residents of the condominium.

In the vast majority of instances, it is important for condominium corporations to actively enforce their declarations, by-laws and rules. In fact, section 17(3) of the Condominium Act, 1998 (the "Act"), imposes an obligation on condominium corporations to take all reasonable steps to ensure compliance.

In a recent case, Pearson v. CCC No.178, the court considered whether a condominium corporation could recover as common expenses the legal costs it incurred for legal advice related to the defence of Small Claims Court actions commenced by an owner.

Most condo corporations have rules that state that pets are not permitted to soil on the Corporation’s property and owners must clean up after their pets.

Although condominium ownership allows one to own a portion of a larger piece of property, the unit owner does not have the same freedoms with respect to that property as would be had in the case of a detached, freehold residential dwelling.

Intellectual property rights have become a truly international phenomenon.

On September 19, 2013, the Ministers of Finance of British Columbia, Ontario and Canada announced that they had agreed to establish a cooperative capital markets regulatory system.

Chile just passed new marketing restrictions and labelling requirements for packaged foods qualifying as "high" in calories, fat, sugar or salt.