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Begin New Search Topic Digitalization Author Keldon Bester

1. Digitalization of Payments and Currency

Author:
Robert Fay, Keldon Bester, David Dodge, Serge Dupont, Mark Jewett, John Murray, and Laurie Wright
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
As a growing number of countries adopt digital payments and currencies, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Bennett Jones LLP hosted a virtual workshop on March 7, 2023, to discuss the implications for Canada. Building on their previous work in related fields, participants including Canadian and international experts from the public and private sectors as well as from academia explored four topics: payments system modernization, open banking, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies. Creating a trustworthy digital financial system in which Canadians can conduct personal and business transactions in a reliable way is key to Canada’s successful adoption of digital payments and currencies.
Topic:
Governance, Central Bank, Currency, Innovation, Conference, Digitalization, and Digital Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Merger Policy for a Dynamic and Digital Canadian Economy

Author:
Keldon Bester
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
As an element of competition and antitrust law frameworks, merger policy plays an important role in preventing acquisitions that would otherwise allow incumbent firms to extinguish competitive threats and entrench their dominance. But evidence suggests that current approaches to merger law in Canada and abroad have underestimated the harms these transactions can pose to competition and overestimated the effectiveness of the remedies intended to mitigate those harms. Although relevant across the Canadian economy, this permissive treatment of mergers is particularly pronounced in digital markets, where platform business models, the importance of potential competitors and the role of intangible assets such as data as a barrier to entry test the assumptions underlying the country’s merger law. Canada’s current law and jurisprudence mean the Competition Bureau, Canada’s sole competition authority, is limited in its ability to detect potentially harmful transactions, faces material barriers to intervening and fully remedying the harms of those transactions, and is unable to assess the outcome of previous action or inaction. This paper provides recommendations for Canada to ensure its merger law is calibrated for a modern economy.
Topic:
Economics, Regulation, Digital Economy, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
Canada and North America