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Last week the Canadian Government introduced amendments to the Investment Canada Act (ICA) to implement its revised policy towards state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which it announced in December last year. At that time, while it approved the acquisition by Chinese SOE, CNOOC, of Canadian oil and gas company, Nexen, the Government announced its intention to prohibit acquisitions of control of Canadian oil sands businesses by SOEs except on an exceptional basis.

In this presentation, Dentons' Doris Bonora and Cheryl Gibson describe the important considerations for business owners regarding estate planning.

The complicated interplay between holding parties to an arbitration agreement and upholding the purpose and intent of legislation concerned with public order is not new in Canada. In 2011 the Supreme Court of Canada decided Seidel v Telus Communications Inc, in which the court refused to enforce an arbitration agreement at the expense of a class action proceeding. Seidel concerned the British Columbia Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act.

We are delighted to announce our new global law firm, Dentons!

This annual publication is produced by the National Tax Group of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP (FMC), together with CCH.

This edition contains editorial comments regarding the tax proposals announced in the 2013 Federal Budget by the Honourable James M. Flaherty, P.C., M.P., Minister of Finance.

A round up of the past month's key Canadian Energy topics including Oil Sands, East Coast News, West Coast News, Emerging Issues can be found in full on the FMC website, and is provided each month by FMC's Energy Group.

In this presentation, FMC’s Bernard Roth outlines the current trends in energy regulatory law. The presentation includes some of the following topics:
- Trends in Facilities Regulation
- Alberta Non-Utility Oil and Gas Facilities
- AER Structure
- Responsible Energy Development
- Federal Budget Legislative Changes

In this presentation, FMC’s Doris Bonora and Mark Woltersdorf outline the important considerations when planning before death, including:
- Power of Attorney
- Personal Directive
- Farm Tax Planning
- Estate Freeze
- Wills

A round up of the past month's key Canadian Energy topics including Oil Sands, East Coast News, West Coast News, Emerging Issues can be found in full on the FMC website, and is provided each month by FMC's Energy Group.

In the wake of recent anti-corruption cases brought against two Canadian companies, the Government of Canada has signalled its continuing commitment to fight foreign corruption by proposing significant amendments to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (the “CFPOA”). These amendments address the OECD’s criticism that Canada is not taking seriously its commitments under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials (the “OECD Convention”).

The Supreme Court of Canada overturned the Ontario Court of Appeal today in what is one of the most highly-anticipated cases for the pension and insolvency bars pending before the courts. In Indalex (Re) 2013 SCC 6, the court provided clarity regarding some key questions relating to the governance of an employer-administered pension plan during a proceeding under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). The judges split on some of the issues, but here is our brief round-up.

A round up of the past month's key Canadian Energy topics including Oil Sands, East Coast News, West Coast News, Emerging Issues can be found in full on the FMC website, and is provided each month by FMC's Energy Group.

In this presentation, Marc Lemieux, partner at FMC, gives an introduction to letters of credit for banking lawyers.

In this presentation, FMC’s Gal Smolar discusses the legal aspects of customer acquisitions for startups. The presentation focuses on customer acquisitions, acquisition contracts, trends, right to data, restrictive covenants, exclusivity, joint development and customer acquisition tips.

On January 10, 2013, the Canada Revenue Agency released its 2011-2012 Advance Pricing Arrangement Program Report (previous reports are available here).

This is the eleventh year in which the CRA has issued such a report, which is generally intended to enhance taxpayer awareness of the APA program and to describe (i) current operational status, (ii) relevant changes, and (iii) issues that may affect the program in future years.

On December 18, 2012, the UK Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) issued an enforcement report on compliance with the rules regarding obtaining consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies.

On December 10, 2012, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a Staff Report entitled“Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade”. The Staff Report examines the privacy disclosures and practices of mobile apps. The survey was conducted during the summer of 2012. FTC Staff tested 400 apps.

A round up of the past month's key Canadian Energy topics including Oil Sands, East Coast News, West Coast News, Emerging Issues can be found in full on the FMC website, and is provided each month by FMC's Energy Group.

The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V), which are part of the TMX Group in Canada, are receptive to new successful listings of Chinese companies. With the new TMX Group office opening in Beijing on November 14, 2011, Chinese companies now have greater exposure to the Canadian capital markets. From 2006 to 2011, an increasing number of Chinese companies were listed on the TSX or the TSX-V and the number of Chinese-based companies listed on the TSX and TSX-V grew from 35 to 56. The total market capitalization of these companies grew from $3.9 billion to $4.6 billion at the end of 2011.

In this presentation, FMC Law's Alex MacWilliam discusses hydraulic fracturing. The presentation covers the hydraulic fracturing process; the legislative and regulatory management of key issues related to hydraulic fracturing; liability issues in fracturing litigation; finally, lessons and trends related to hydraulic fracturing.

On Friday, December 7th, the Canadian Government approved two controversial takeovers of Canadian companies under the Investment Canada Act, Canada’s foreign investment review legislation: the acquisition of oil and gas company Nexen by Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), CNOOC, and the acquisition of natural gas producer Progress Energy by Malaysian SOE, Petronas.

In this presentation, Rob McDonald outlines the key amendments to the Copyright Act and explains how Canada's copyright laws will change with the new Copyright Modernization Act.

Canada and the European Union are in the final push to complete a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (“CETA”) by the end of this year. Negotiators on both sides may already have pulled together the outline of a possible “final package” for review and discussion by Trade Minister Ed Fast and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.

A round up of the past month's key Canadian Energy topics including Oil Sands, East Coast News, West Coast News, Emerging Issues can be found in full on the FMC website, and is provided each month by FMC's Energy Group.

The Federal Court of Appeal (the “FCA”) released its reasons in The Queen v. Donna M. Johnson (2012 FCA 253) on October 4, 2012. In that decision, the FCA ruled that payments made to an unwitting participant in a Ponzi scheme were taxable as income.