Criticism of recent amendments to the Competition Act

In Volume 2, Issue 1 of Inside Internal Control, we discussed the upcoming substantive changes in Bill C-10 to the federal Competition Act. The amended Act is now law (although there are some provisions not yet in force), and its potential impact on Canadian businesses is still in the news.

Many of the criticisms of the revised Competition Act centre around the amendments relating to the new "two track" conspiracy provisions, the introduction of significant fines under the abuse of dominance provisions, and a U.S.-style second request process for mergers.

These issues are discussed in a recent article by Mark Nicholson, Chris Hersh and Yana Ermak of Cassels Brock entitled "Government Passes Major Amendments To The Competition Act And Investment Canada Act - Some Good, But Mostly Bad," which concludes that "the combination of large fines and a broad enforcement approach raises significant compliance concerns for a much broader range of businesses than was previously the case." Click here to link to this thought-provoking article.

And you can be confident that the changes to the Competition Act will be incorporated into policy GV 4.06 - Competition Law included in Volume II of Finance & Accounting PolicyPro (FAPP) as part of a regular update release.

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The Story of Stuff

To mark Earth Day, we invite you to spend 20 minutes watching the thought-provoking Story of Stuff at www.storyofstuff.com. It´s an entertaining look at the relationships between the extraction of resources and the manufacturing, marketing, consumption and disposal of consumer goods, and why the current way we do these things is not sustainable.

We´d also like to congratulate Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES), a not-for-profit organization formed by leading retail, information technology and consumer electronic companies to implement the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Program Plan, which aims to divert an additional 160,000 tonnes of waste electronics such as computers and televisions away from landfill and into reuse and recycling solutions over the next five years. Click here for more information.

To help build environmental policies in your organization, Operations & Marketing PolicyPro includes an Environmental Management chapter with hazardous material management, recycling, energy conservation, sustainability and emissions trading policies.

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The value of brands

As noted by Jeffrey Sherman in the Overview to policy GV 4.04 - Copyrights and Trademarks in Volume II of Finance & Accounting PolicyPro: "Prudent protection of a company´s identity though copyrights, trademarks and domain name registration reduces the risk that imitators will siphon off its value."

This is echoed in an interesting article by Brian D. Edmonds of McCarthy Tétrault, who points out that the value of a brand to an organization is very significant and often underestimated. As he says: "Given the rising prominence of brands as valuable corporate assets, stakeholders may increasingly seek confirmation that the corporation has a well-developed and well-executed brand management program." For a link to the article, click here.

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Right to privacy thrown out with the trash

In the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling in R. v. Patrick, which arose in the context of a criminal drug prosecution, the majority held that the plaintiff "abandoned his privacy interest when he placed his garbage for collection at the rear of his property where it was accessible to any passing member of the public....His conduct was incompatible with any reasonable expectation of confidentiality."

As noted by Karen E. Jackson, Wesley Ng and Andrew Cunningham of Stikeman Elliott in their article No privacy in trash, Supreme Court holds, the decision "underscores the importance of careful disposal of documents containing confidential information or other information that could potentially be embarrassing or damaging to your company´s interests." For a link to the article, and to the judgment itself, click here.

Information Technology PolicyPro contains policy 9.05 - Data Disposal to help organizations ensure that data is disposed of or destroyed according to its classification.

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New federal environmental enforcement regulations

Bill C-16 received first reading on March 5. The Bill amends nine federal Acts and increases fines for environmental offences. It also strengthens the government´s enforcement regime with more officers and better laboratory service, technical expertise, and expert witnesses.

For the Environment Canada news release introducing the Bill, click here.

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Governance and risk management in NPOs

A very useful article on KnowledgeLeader.com discusses the relationship between risk management and sound governance in not-for-profit organizations, and makes the point that risk management is an integral part of other disciplines, such as strategic planning and financial management. As such, developing an effective risk management framework must be a priority for the board of directors and senior management. Click here for a link to the KnowledgeLeader article.

And this point of view is echoed the authors of Not-for-Profit PolicyPro, who note in the Overview to policy 2.05 - Risk Management: "Risk management processes mean fewer surprises, better change management, more efficient use of available resources, improved decision-making, fewer losses due to theft or fraud and less trauma during emergencies."

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About Inside Internal Control

Editor: Colin Braithwaite, Managing Editor, PolicyPro.

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