Still no answers on yearslong bread price-fixing scandal: law professor
CTV
More than five years since Canada’s Competition Bureau began an investigation into an alleged bread-price fixing scheme, no conclusions have been drawn nor charges laid. As the watchdog is now probing whether grocery stores are profiting from inflation, one expert says the effectiveness of its tools are in question.
It’s been more than five years since Canada’s Competition Bureau began its investigation into an alleged bread price-fixing scheme involving major grocery chains and bakeries countrywide.
But since then, no charges have been laid and the Bureau hasn’t released conclusions of its probe.
The vice-dean of research in Civil Law at the University of Ottawa says it raises questions about the watchdog’s ability to safeguard consumers or compel companies.
“It’s not clear what’s going on, and I don’t know that the Competition Bureau knows what they need to do to change the incentives,” associate professor Jennifer Quaid told CTV’s Your Morning on Tuesday, also referring to the watchdog’s examination of companies’ profits amid rising food prices.
News of bread price-fixing emerged in 2015, when Loblaw alerted the Competition Bureau to its role in an alleged scheme that it claimed caused packaged bread prices to be artificially inflated between 2001 and 2015.
In court documents released in 2018, the Competition Bureau alleged that senior officers at Canada Bread Company Ltd. and George Weston Ltd. communicated with each other to agree to raise bread prices at least 15 times, with increases averaging about 10 cents.
According to the Bureau’s allegations within the court documents, the suppliers allegedly met with retailers to gain consensus approval for the price hikes in practices the watchdog believed continued into 2017.
