The Intersection of Merger Reviews and National Security Regimes

Adam Kalbfleisch spoke as a panellist at the Canadian Bar Association’s Competition Law Fall Conference in Ottawa on October 20. The Lawyer's Daily covered the event.

One of the themes Adam's panel discussed was the extent to which merger reviews and national security regimes intersect. He said that, unlike in the US and Europe where a small handful of merger cases involved parties arguing that a merger should be allowed owing to it being positive from a national security perspective (even where it would ostensibly result in a lessening of competition), this type of intersection of the two regimes had not yet been seen in Canada, including in transactions he has facilitated.

Adam said there are definitely some interesting issues in connection with that intersection, but for now he thinks they are more likely to arise in areas such as military or patents and develop through policy development and legislative amendments, rather than in connection with the current merger review process.