Biography: Competition

Brian Facey is the co-chair of Blakes competition, antitrust and foreign investment group. He is one of Canada's top regulatory lawyers. He is also the relationship partner for a number of the firm's national and international clients. He has advised clients in hundreds of legal matters, including merger transactions, criminal cartel cases, and distribution and advertising matters under the Competition Act. He has also represented many foreign investors, including state-owned investors and foreign governments, under the provisions of the Investment Canada Act and the State-Owned Enterprise Guidelines, which regulate the acquisition of foreign control of Canadian businesses. Brian has secured approvals for foreign investors in many of Canada's key industries, including the energy, mining, transportation and automotive sectors.

Brian has been involved in many of Canada's most significant legal cases. Select matters that are of public record include: Bell Canada/Rogers/Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs); The Forzani Group Ltd/Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited; Intact Financial Corporation/AXA SA; CTVglobemedia Inc/Bell Canada; Hertz Global Holdings Inc/Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc; Yellow Pages/Canpages; Inbev SA/Anheuser-Busch; Suncor Energy Inc/Petro-Canada; XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc/Sirius Satellite Radio Inc; Merck & Co, Inc/Schering-Plough Corporation; Aluminum Corporation of China/Rio Tinto plc; Inbev/Labatt Brewing Company Limited/Lakeport Brewing Income Fund (before the Competition Bureau, the Competition Tribunal, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal); Superior Propane in Canada's leading merger efficiencies case before the Competition Tribunal and the Federal Court of Appeal; and Rhône-Poulenc in the international vitamin price-fixing case.

Brian is recognised as one of Canada's leading competition lawyers in every major lawyer-ranking service including Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business; The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada; Law Business Research's Who's Who Legal: Canada; Legal Media Group's Guide to the World's Leading Competition/Antitrust Lawyers; The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory; PLC Which Lawyer?; Lexpert magazine's "Top 40: 40 and Under 40"; The Best Lawyers in Canada; and The Lexpert Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Litigation Lawyers in Canada. He is also ranked in the Legal Media Group's Guide to Leading Practitioners: China, having been nominated by peers and in-house counsel as a preeminent competition and antitrust expert with experience on China matters.

Law Business Research's The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers 2009, referred to Brian as "one of the absolute best in the country right now," and Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business 2010 noted that he has "'razor-sharp business acumen and always sees the best angle to tackle the matter'."

Brian is co-author of a leading treatise on Canadian competition law entitled Competition and Antitrust Law: Canada and the United States, LexisNexis, 2006. He has testified before the Canadian Senate and parliamentary committees on proposed amendments to the Competition Act. He was also appointed by the Commissioner of Competition as an external consultant to the Competition Bureau in relation to the recent amendments to Canada's competition laws.

Brian is vice chair of the executive committee of the Canadian Bar Association's national competition law section. He is active in the American Bar Association – antitrust section and the International Bar Association. He was a founder and past co-chair of the foreign investment review committee of the national competition section of the Canadian Bar Association, which represents the views of the Canadian Bar in relation to investments by non-Canadians. He is a private-sector adviser to the International Competition Network. For more than a decade, Brian was an adjunct professor of competition law at one of Canada's leading law schools. He has spoken to audiences in Canada and abroad, and has written articles for the Antitrust Law Journal, the Antitrust Bulletin, Antitrust Magazine, World Competition, the Competition Policy Record, Global Competition Review and Fordham Corporate Law Institute.

Brian was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1993. He holds an LLM (specialised in antitrust economics and law) from Georgetown University, an LLB from the University of British Columbia and an honours BA (economics) from the University of Toronto.