Matt Damon stars as an Archer Daniels executive in The InformantClaudette Barius
How do you warn corporate clients that competition regulators are beefing up cartel investigations? If you are Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, you hand them a box of popcorn and screen a movie.
About 30 Davies clients will be ushered into one of the firm's boardrooms Thursday night to watch Steven Soderbergh's movie The Informant. The film is about a quirky and delusional Archer Daniels executive who secretly taped meetings of company officials and competitors conspiring to fix prices on food additives. The spying led to jail sentences for Archer Daniels executives.
Such a fate, Davies' competition guru George Addy warns, could happen in Canada under recently amended cartel laws. It used to be that Canadian investigators had to go a big step further than their American counterparts and prove not only that industry players conspired to fix prices, but also that their actions actually had an impact on the market. Not surprisingly, cartel convictions are a rare beast in Canada.
Now that Canada's Competition Bureau is armed with U.S.-style laws, regulators only have to catch company officials in the act of talking about price fixing to secure convictions. That means informants, wire taps and surveillance cameras could be coming to a business conversation near you.
To underline the risks, Davies has asked James Mutchnik, a federal prosecutor in the Archer Daniels case, to speak about cartel investigation techniques. Mr. Mutchnik is now a partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
OSC settlement trumps mutual-fund class action
The road to investor class-action lawsuits is a bumpy one in Canada. Many are launched, but few have been certified by judges to proceed. Another investor action was driven off the road last week when Mr. Justice Paul Perell of the Superior Court of Ontario tossed out a bid by a group to launch a class action against mutual-fund companies such as CI Mutual Funds Inc. and AGF Funds for losses suffered when the funds allegedly timed investments to boost performance scores.
The problem with the investors' claim, Judge Perell ruled, was that the Ontario Securities Commission had already reached a settlement with mutual-fund companies, which agreed to pay $205.6-million to investors. Judge Perell ruled the OSC proceedings did "provide access to justice" and was a "preferable procedure."
On the move
Banking and financial services heavyweight Stephen Clark has packed up his 32-year career at McCarthy Tétrault to join Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. Mr. Clark is a leading specialist in financial services regulation.
Emily Cole has hung up her regulatory spurs and left the OSC to join Miller Thomson LLP as an associate in the securities litigation group. The company also added commercial litigator Megan Mackey, who joins the firm as an associate from Heath & Co.
bartalk@globeandmail.com