Competitors Bureau opens investigation into Utilized Programs

Insurance coverage software program enterprise Utilized Programs is dealing with a Canadian Competitors Bureau investigation into alleged “anti-competitive” conduct.

The Federal Courtroom of Canada granted an order on November 14, 2023, requiring Utilized Programs Canada to provide information and written data for the Competitors Bureau’s investigation.

The Competitors Bureau will use data obtained throughout its Utilized Programs investigation to “decide if the alleged conduct is harming competitors in Canada’s insurance coverage know-how (insurtech) business,” the division stated in a brand new launch.

The division is additional set to research “whether or not Utilized Programs is partaking in conduct opposite to the restrictive commerce practices provisions of the Competitors Act, together with the abuse of dominance provision.”

What’s abuse of dominance?

Abuse of dominance is when a enterprise or group of companies engages in exercise that forestalls market competitors or considerably lessens it.

Companies which are discovered to have engaged in abuse of dominance can face a variety of treatments, together with consensual resolutions, orders to endure structural and behavioural modifications, prohibition and prescriptive orders, or administrative penalties together with a tremendous of as much as CA$10 million for the primary order, and CA$15 million for every subsequent order.

Utilized Programs says it’s “totally cooperating” with Competitors Bureau competitors investigation

In a press release shared with Insurance coverage Enterprise, Utilized Programs confirmed it’s conscious of the investigation and is “totally cooperating” with the overview course of.

“There was no discovering of any non-compliance. We imagine Utilized is in compliance with the Competitors Act and we’re assured that we are going to efficiently resolve the investigation,” stated Utilized Programs chief authorized counsel Wealthy Cohan.

“Our folks stay dedicated to Utilized’s mission to ship innovation that creates extra worth for all the world insurance coverage worth chain and allow brokerages, insurers, and companions to safeguard and defend what issues most to hundreds of thousands of individuals all over the world.”

Canada up to date its Competitors Act final yr to broaden its scope

Canada’s parliament added amendments to the nation’s Competitors Act in June 2022, broadening its scope and clarifying an anti-competitive act as one that’s “supposed to have a predatory, exclusionary, or disciplinary unfavourable impression on a competitor, or to have an adversarial impact on competitors.”

“I’ve been fairly clear that our competitors legislation is not match for our fashionable financial system and lags far behind the most effective practices in use by different nations all over the world,” Boswell stated.

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