Although Eldorado would not have been a Crown agent under the common law test of whether the alleged agent can assert independence by reason of the terms of appointment and nature of the office, Eldorado was deemed to be a Crown agent by virtue of a statutory provision that provided that it "is for all purposes an agent of Her Majesty and its powers may be exercised only as an agent of Her Majesty". Accordingly, Eldorado benefitted from Crown immunity against a prosecution under the Combines Investigation Act to the extent that the impugned acts were designed to effect Crown purposes (as opposed to, say, acts that were committed in the course of fulfilling Crown purposes but which in no way were undertaken in order to effect Crown purposes). Since this test was satisfied, Eldorado was immune from such prosecution.
Dickson J. stated (at p. 213):
"The draftsman of the governing statutes of Uranium Canada and Eldorado may well have been thinking of immunity from taxing statutes rather than criminal statutes, but the result is that there is immunity from both as long as the corporations are acting within their respective authorized purposes."