What is the scope of Canada’s new conspiracy regime?
Canada now has three new criminal conspiracy offences for “hard core” cartel conduct, making bare price fixing, market allocation and supply restriction agreements per se illegal – i.e., without the necessity of establishing any anti-competitive effects on a relevant market (or markets). At the same time, a second civil provision has come into force under which other commercial agreements (i.e., agreements that do not fall within the scope of the new criminal offences) may be subject to review, where they prevent or lessen competition substantially.
