Originally Posted by
Symmetre
Flair's complaint is hilarious given that their own business model calls for them to compete on price and essentially undercut competitors like WS and AC.
Apparently they didn't expect someone else to do exactly the same thing to them.
True - but not really relevant to the basis of a predatory pricing complaint.
Pricing competitively to undercut is not necessarily the same as predatory pricing. It is the intent of the pricing that the Competition Bureau cares about and intent is a very hard thing to prove.
"“The Bureau considers predatory pricing to be a firm deliberately setting prices to incur losses for a sufficiently long period of time to eliminate, discipline, or deter entry by a competitor, in the expectation that the firm will subsequently be able to recoup its losses by charging prices above the level that would have prevailed in the absence of the impugned conduct, with the effect that competition would be substantially lessened or prevented.”
(Competition Bureau,
Predatory Pricing Enforcement Guidelines)"
"To establish that a firm has engaged in predatory pricing, the elements of section 79 of the Act must be established by the Bureau on an application to the Competition Tribunal (“Tribunal”) – i.e., that a dominant firm (or firms – section 79 includes joint dominance) has engaged in a practice of anti-competitive acts (i.e., predatory pricing conduct) that has prevented or lessened competition substantially (or is likely to do so).
Where an abuse of dominance is established, the Tribunal has the power to make a number of types of orders, including for the conduct to stop or for a firm to pay “administrative monetary penalty” of up to $10 million ($15 million for subsequent orders)."