Investing.com -- Top officials from federal agencies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico met in Toronto on Friday to discuss a wide array of international antitrust issues in their latest efforts to facilitate effective cross border enforcement.
The trilateral meeting of senior officials of the antitrust agencies has transpired regularly since the U.S. entered into a comprehensive antitrust agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1995, and is supplemented by working group meetings throughout the year to help improve best sharing practices. The agencies have also broadened relations since the U.S. and Canada signed an agreement two years ago related to best cooperation practices in merger investigations.
Key participants at Friday's meeting included: U.S. Federal Trade Commission chair Edith Ramirez, U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, Canadian Commissioner of Competition John Pecman and Mexican Federal Economic Competition Commission president Alejandra Palacios Prieto. The four department heads also took part in a roundtable discussion at the spring conference of the Canadian Bar Association’s Competition Law Section, where they examined how recent trends, developments and innovations have impacted competition enforcement in a global context.
"The antitrust relationship among the United States, Canada and Mexico is one of the most advanced in the world," Ramirez said in a statement. "We work together on cross-border cases to ensure effective and compatible enforcement and on policy matters to promote convergence toward best practices. Our meeting enables us to strengthen our cooperation to enhance competition and benefit our consumers."
The officials also spent a considerable amount of time on Friday reviewing recent cases, cooperation initiatives between the agencies and other technical matters. In December, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Veyance Technologies, Inc. to divest its North American commercial vehicle air springs' business before it completed a $1.8 billion merger with Continental AG (DE:CONG). At the time, the Justice Department said it worked closely with antitrust officials from Canada and Mexico during an 11-month review.
In addition, the FTC and the Competition Bureau of Canada announced simultaneous legal challenges against SPLS and Office Depot, while contesting their $6.3 billion merger. It marked the first effort of its kind between the agencies. Last week, the companies terminated the deal after a U.S. Federal Judge blocked the merger.
"We are very fortunate to have such strong relationships with our partners in Canada and Mexico,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hesse said in a statement. "In this increasingly globalized economy, close cooperation with our North American colleagues is important to protecting the competitiveness of our markets. These meetings are a useful part of our ongoing enforcement collaboration, and they provide a great opportunity to discuss our shared competition policy challenges."