We launched this year’s edition of our Dentons’ Pick of Canadian Regulatory Trends to Watch back in January. In this annual series, Dentons’ team of leading regulatory lawyers forecast key trends for 2022 across a range of legal areas, including trade, competition, foreign investment review and national security, energy regulatory, digital economy regulation, and environment and climate change.
At the beginning of February, we posted the links to the articles we published in January.
Below are brief summaries and links to our February articles:
ESG trends to watch in 2022: Incoming regulation with a chance of litigation
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors represent a variety of non-financial risks and opportunities that impact company value. ESG reflects the increasingly accepted proposition that pursuing environmentally and socially sustainable corporate governance is not only the right thing to do, but can lead to positive financial outcomes.
Link to the full article here.
Competition law trends to watch in 2022: The enforcers’ comeback
From the appointment of “big tech” critic Lina Khan as US Federal Trade Commission chair to China’s increasingly assertive use of its anti-monopoly law against domestic firms, 2021 continued to show signs of an acceleration of competition enforcement globally.
Link to the full article here.
Consumer products’ trends to watch in 2022: The war on plastic
Historically, federal regulations restricting plastic in consumer products or their packaging were rooted in the harmful effects of plastic on humans. However, 2021 marked a shift in the rationale for regulating plastics in consumer products and their packaging when “plastic manufactured items” were added to the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule 1 to the Canada Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). This designation means that the federal government now has the authority to enact regulations restricting the use of plastics in consumer products and in consumer product packaging based on their potential harmful effects on the environment.
Link to the full article here.
Trends to watch in tort liability for 2022: BC Supreme Court confirms private entities can rely on statutory authority as a shield to tort claims brought by Aboriginal rights holders
The BC Supreme Court recently confirmed that third-party proponents can be held liable for torts affecting a First Nations’ established or claimed Aboriginal rights and title. However, the Court confirmed the defence of statutory authority can apply to relieve the third party from liability if the third party acts within the bounds of its statutory authorization.
Link to the full article here.
These pieces were originally published on dentons.com
To access all the articles in the Dentons’ pick of Canadian Regulatory Trends to Watch in 2022 series, click here.
