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Rogers and Shaw won a decisive victory at the Federal Court of Appeal, which upheld a ruling in favour of their $26-billion merger.
The telecom takeover was before the appellate court on Tuesday after the Competition Bureau appealed last month’s ruling from the Competition Tribunal.
The tribunal found the deal, plus a separate transaction to sell Shaw’s Freedom Mobile wireless business to Vidéotron, would not seriously reduce competition or lead to materially higher prices in the wireless business.
A three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal upheld that ruling on Tuesday. The judges issued their ruling from the bench after hearing only from lawyers for the Competition Bureau and saying they did not need to hear from lawyers for the companies.
Justice David Stratas, who read the decision aloud, cited the dozens of witnesses the Competition Tribunal heard from, the thousands of pages of evidence it reviewed and the lengthy written decision it released.
Stratas said on Tuesday that the decision below indicated “this was far from a close case,” and later added that he and his fellow panel members agreed.
More to come
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