After five years of back and forth at various levels of court, the Competition Tribunal has rendered a decision in the Toronto Real Estate Board case, partially granting the application brought by the Commissioner of Competition pursuant the abuse of dominance provision ( section 79) of the Competition Act.    

As mentioned in our earlier blog posts, the Commissioner's application involves a challenge by the Commissioner against TREB for allegedly abusing its dominance under section 79 of the Competition Act in relation to membership rules governing the use by members of certain of the board's multiple listing service® (MLS®) listing data. In particular, the Commissioner alleged that TREB's rules restricted the manner in which real estate brokers and salespersons may display and use certain MLS® data.

 While the decision has yet to be made public, the Tribunal has released a short summary of its decision that offers some insight into how the Tribunal concluded that TREB's conduct, on a balance of probabilities, satisfied all three elements of the abuse of dominance provision:

  • The Tribunal determined that TREB substantially or completely controls the supply of MLS®-based residential real estate brokerage services in the GTA.
  • The Tribunal found that TREB has engaged in, and continues to engage in, a practice of anti-competitive acts through the enactment and maintenance of certain restrictive aspects of the rules and policy that TREB has adopted regarding the virtual office websites (VOW) of its real estate brokers and salespersons.
  • The Tribunal concluded that these VOW restrictions have had, are having and are likely to have the effect of preventing competition substantially in a market. 

The Tribunal reached this conclusion after finding that the VOW restrictions have substantially reduced the degree of non-price competition in the supply of MLS®-based residential real estate brokerage services in the GTA, including a considerable adverse impact on innovation, quality and the range of residential real estate brokerage services that likely would be offered in the GTA absent the VOW restrictions. 

The next step will be for the parties to provide written submissions and have an opportunity to make oral submissions to the Tribunal on the issue of remedies, after which the Tribunal will make its final order.    

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