CRA economists provided economic analyses and testimony on behalf of the Competition Bureau in its litigation regarding the exclusionary practices by the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB). The long-running case, involving one of the largest real estate markets in North America, dates to 2011. The Competition Tribunal ruled in favor of the Bureau which sought to prohibit TREB’s rules that limited the information that real estate agents could use and show their clients on the agents’ password protected websites referred to as Virtual Office Websites (VOWs). CRA’s expert, Gregory Vistnes, showed that VOWs represent an important form of dynamic competition which will ultimately benefit consumers.
How compulsory licensing shaped innovation in the Xerox case
In a new article published in the Journal of Industrial Economics, CRA’s Robin Mamrak shows that opening up an incumbent’s patent portfolio can promote...