Canada ’s Competition Bureau has launched investigations into the parent companies of grocery chains Loblaws and Sobeys for alleged anticompetitive conduct, court documents reveal, with Sobeys’ owner calling the inquiry “unlawful.”
At the time, deputy commissioner Anthony Durocher told a House of Commons committee that property controls can be a barrier both for independent grocery stores and chains looking to expand, as well as for foreign players looking to enter Canada. Loblaws’ parent company is co-operating with the bureau’s review, said spokeswoman Catherine Thomas on behalf of George Weston Ltd.
Through a subsidiary, Empire holds a 41.5 per cent interest in Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust, and Empire is an anchor tenant in the majority of Crombie’s properties, the documents say, adding that Empire’s ownership interest in Crombie puts it in a position to exercise influence over the REIT.
Restrictive covenants in private contracts, the commissioner says, “limit or restrict” how a piece of land can be used and can apply even after changing ownership. The property controls, the commissioner says, may give the companies “the ability to exclude actual or potential competitors from selling food products within certain geographic areas or to dictate the terms upon which they carry on business.”
In a separate application in Federal Court that has yet to be decided by a judge, the company denies that property controls are anti-competitive and says they “are not unique to the grocery sector, but have been widely used for decades in a range of retail and other sectors across the country.”
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)
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