Investigation Finds FBN Not Blocked from Crop Input Sales

An investigation by the Competition Bureau has found that there’s not sufficient evidence to prove that manufacturers and wholesalers disadvantaged, restricted, or blocked the supply of crop inputs to Farmers Business Network Canada Inc. (FBN), a March 15 news release says.

The Bureau examined allegations that a number of manufacturers and wholesalers disadvantaged, restricted, or blocked the supply of crop inputs to FBN. The investigation focused on:

• if an agreement or arrangement against FBN existed between any of the targets of the investigation;
• if any of the targets abused a dominant position by acting with negative intent to exclude FBN from the market; and
• if any of the alleged conduct had or would likely, as a result, have substantially prevented or lessened competition.

The release says that after a careful review of the evidence, the Bureau determined that the evidence doesn’t sufficiently demonstrate that an agreement exists between competitors in relation to FBN.

However, the evidence does suggest that certain market participants communicated with the goal of influencing suppliers with respect to FBN. The Bureau views these communications – which took place in a highly concentrated sector – to be a significant concern, the release says.

“Firms should be aware that similar communications could create agreements that contravene the civil or criminal conspiracy provisions of the Competition Act depending on their terms.”

“The Bureau also focused on the conduct of the targets that it believes are most likely to hold dominant market positions under the Act. At this time, the evidence does not clearly demonstrate that their conduct resulted in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition – which is a requirement for behaviour to form an abuse of dominance.”

The release says that having carefully considered the full body of evidence, the Bureau doesn’t intend to pursue its investigation. A position statement summarizing the Bureau’s findings and the reasons for ending this investigation are available online.