Competition Tribunal Dismisses Bureau's Lawsuit Against TREB

By Penny Elizabeth Dutkowski, Broker

In the ruling delivered April 15th. The Competition Tribunal dismissed the Anti-Competitive lawsuit against the Toronto Real Estate Board which was launched by the Competition Bureau's ex-Commissioner, Melanie Aitken.

The tribunal made two relevant points. First was the decision which turned in favour of TREB on the fact that TREB itself is not competing against its membership. That was obvious as was pointed out in this previous post which parsed the acting commissioner's opening argument.

Coincidentally this also means that the part of the lawsuit arguing for TREB to release individual sold information for public consumption and which was argued for by Lawrence Dale on behalf of Realtysellers, is also dismissed. The tribunal however did not mention this particular equation or delve into the privacy territory of same perhaps because that was secondary to determining whether or not the commissioner's charge met the requirements of the section of the act under which the lawsuit was launched.

It's pleasing to know that the cloud unduly cast over TREB has been lifted.

The second point made by the tribunal was more or less a not so subtle hint that the Bureau should have taken or even, may wish to pursue, a suit against the board's directors. 

We'll wait to see if said lawsuit is launched before making any comments on that.