Gary Caracciolo

Canada Bread Company Limited pleaded guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act.

The offences involved agreements with Weston Food Canada Inc. to increase wholesale fresh commercial bread prices, impacting millions of consumers.

The court accepted a joint submission for a total fine of $50 million, allocated across the four counts.

The decision considered aggravating factors such as high planning and coordination, and mitigating factors including the company's cooperation with the Competition Bureau, change in ownership, and implementation of a compliance program.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence as primary sentencing objectives, ensuring the fine was significant enough to eliminate profit and not merely a "cost of doing business."

The defendant, 1806369 Alberta Limited (ReviveYou Media), pleaded guilty to one count of false or misleading representations under s. 52(1) of the Competition Act.

The company operated a 'subscription trap' scheme involving diet pills, where consumers were led to believe they were signing up for a 'risk-free trial' with only a small shipping fee, but were in fact enrolled in recurring monthly subscriptions.

The scheme generated approximately $19.6 million USD in sales.

The court accepted a joint submission from counsel, imposing a $15 million fine and a 10-year prohibition order under s. 34(1) of the Competition Act, emphasizing deterrence and denunciation despite the defendant's inability to pay the full amount.

This ruling addresses the scope of redactions to be applied to public court documents related to a prior non-publication order granted to "Person X." The court balanced the applicant's privacy interests in preventing direct or indirect identification with the public's right to access information, particularly as advocated by media interveners.

The judge approved most of the applicant's proposed redactions but rejected some, allowing general, non-identifying information about Person X's personal circumstances, professional reputation, and the fact of being a target of a Competition Bureau investigation to remain in the public record.

The ruling also vacated a previous sealing order and varied an *in camera* order.

The Immunity Applicant Witnesses sought a declaration of informer privilege in an ongoing Competition Act inquiry into alleged price-fixing.

The Commissioner of Competition opposed, arguing that applying informer privilege would compromise the operation of the Immunity Program.

The court found that informer privilege attached to the witnesses from the outset of their participation in the Immunity Program due to broad confidentiality assurances.

However, the court also concluded that the witnesses had made a clear, express, and informed future waiver of this privilege, effective only if and when they are called to testify at a trial.

The application for informer privilege was granted, but with the condition of future waiver for trial testimony.

The applicant sought clarification on the form of redacted Information to Obtain (ITO) documents following a non-publication order protecting their identity.

The court ordered that gender-identifying pronouns in specific paragraphs be redacted or replaced with 'it' to ensure consistency and protect the applicant's identity.

The court also rejected a proposed 'Warning' format that would leave identifying information visible but subject to a publication ban, ordering instead that the identifying information be fully redacted from the public versions of the ITOs pursuant to section 487.3 of the Criminal Code.

The applicant, an alleged participant in a price-fixing conspiracy in the fresh commercial bread industry, sought a non-publication order to protect their identity in four Informations to Obtain (ITOs) used to secure search warrants.

The applicant was not a target of the search warrants and had not been charged.

The court applied the Dagenais/Mentuck test and section 487.3 of the Criminal Code, finding that the applicant was an 'innocent person' whose reputation and livelihood would suffer serious and irreversible prejudice if their identity were disclosed.

The court granted the non-publication order in large part, concluding that the salutary effects of protecting the applicant's identity outweighed the deleterious effects on the open court principle, while still allowing public access to the majority of the ITOs.