MONTREAL, March 06, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On February 7, 2017, the Competition Bureau of Canada made a website announcement that a company named Mega Byte Information had pled guilty and was fined $450,000 for deceptive telemarketing and that its President, Georges Haligua, was prohibited from engaging in telemarketing activities for 10 years. The same announcement noted that five people were charged with making misrepresentations and engaging in deceptive telemarketing in the Mega Byte Information case and that three of those people have pled guilty - without noting that Mr. Haligua did not plead guilty and that he was never found guilty of anything in that case by any court.
The Competition Bureau’s announcement omitted mention of several material facts ( http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca – February 7, 2017)
First, the announcement did not mention that the prohibition preventing Mr. Haligua from engaging in telemarketing activities was done by agreement, because Mr. Haligua is not engaged in the telemarketing business. As demonstrated by the Mega Byte plea agreement (and what stipulated facts are and are not in it), although Mr. Haligua had a role in general corporate management at Mega Byte, he did not manage or perform its daily telemarketing operations.
Second, Mr. Haligua had sold in 2005 his interests in the telemarketing companies subject of the Bureau’s investigation begun in or about 2006. Those telemarketing companies were only a few among up to 46 businesses worldwide in which Mr. Haligua had invested (the others were unrelated to telemarketing).
Third, and even more importantly, the Competition Bureau’s official announcement did not mention that the Bureau agreed to an unconditional stay of all proceedings against Mr. Haligua and therefore has ceased any further attempts to prove that Mr. Haligua personally committed any regulatory wrongs.
Fourth, the Bureau’s announcement did not mention that it had lost a motion concerning the adequacy of its disclosure of evidence. In fact, the Bureau’s own IT Manager had admitted facts showing that he had selected and sent to his office only certain documentary evidence from confiscated hard drives and that he had excluded other significant evidence that did not support the Bureau’s positions.
Fifth, the Bureau acknowledged that it had spent millions of dollars of government money on the investigation and the referenced proceedings, which have resulted in a recovery of a $450,000 fine payable by Mega Byte and no fine payable by Mr. Haligua - a net loss for the taxpayers of Canada.
Alexandre Bergevin, Attorney of Georges Haligua Montreal office 514-759-6862
