Canada’s Draft Service Standards for Merger Review: Plus Change, Plus C’est La me Chose?

Canada’s merger review process has always suffered from schizophrenia. Unlike in the EU and United States, the timeline for the substantive merger review process has never been aligned with the statutory waiting periods. Absent an injunction, once the statutory waiting periods have expired, the parties are free to close a transaction. However, the expiry of the waiting period has never offered the merging parties any comfort that their proposed transaction would