Tausi Insider

The public hearing that will determine the fate of Rogers Communications Inc.’s RCI-B-T proposed $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc. SJR-B-T has turned out to be not so public after all – despite the Competition Tribunal committing to an “open court process.” Because of its potential implications for users of critical wireless and internet services, the merger of Canada’s two largest cable companies has attracted far more public attention than most hearings held by the Competition Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that adjudicates on matters of civil competition. Many observers describe the hearings thus far as opaque and are calling for more transparency in the tribunal process. Repeatedly, during the first week of hearings, lawyers for both the cable companies and the Competition Bureau, which is attempting to block the merger, asked the judge to go into confidential sessions that have dragged on for hours. In addition, critical documents such as witness statements and t...

A Loblaw grocery store in Ottawa on Feb. 14, 2019. CHRIS WATTIE/Reuters Canada’s major grocers would prefer you not refer to “greedflation,” thank you very much. “In every quarter since inflation took off last summer, gross margins in food have been essentially flat,” Loblaw Cos. Ltd.’s chief financial officer Richard Dufresne said last week on the company’s earnings call. “This gives us the confidence to say categorically that retail prices are not growing faster than cost and the company is not taking advantage of inflation to drive profit.” Those comments are of course much milder than what Michael Medline, the chief executive officer of Sobeys owner Empire Co. Ltd., said in September: Public criticisms of grocer profits were “reckless and incendiary attacks,” he said. The thing is, Canada’s major grocers, a group that also includes Metro Inc., have the ability to help lay the charges to rest. They decline to do so, however, using a loophole in accounting standards to obscure the ...