MEXICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Enrique Espejel, Diego Mora-Jensen, José Joaquín Pacheco and Luis Enrique Pérez García, White & Case
Tax information Tax information held by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit is also protected by a principle known as “tax secrecy”, contained in Article 69 of the Federal Tax Code. Therefore, the registries regarding taxpay - ers’ declarations – where information about income and assets can be found – are confidential. Information on foreign investment in Mexican companies This information is not of a public nature; however, it is contained in the National Registry of Foreign Invest - ments ( Registro Nacional de Inversión Extranjera , or RNIE), which is administered by the Ministry of Econ - omy and regulated by the Foreign Investment Law. Reliable information on the legal status of Mexican companies with foreign investment is registered in the RNIE, including: • the name (or corporate name), nationality and sta - tus of the foreign investors in such companies; • their percentage of ownership; and • the approximate amount of total foreign invest - ment, including the amount of paid and payable subscribed share capital. A private individual may only obtain access to this information through a court order, mediated by judicial process. In such cases, the court must treat the infor - mation in a manner that safeguards the confidentiality of the entity. Precautionary Measures In Mexico, judicial proceedings in all matters – espe - cially civil and commercial – provide for precautionary measures. These judicial tools allow judges to secure the subject matter of the litigation by: • maintaining factual or legal situations, immobilising goods, assets or even legal acts; • retaining goods through the means of provisional seizure; or • retaining persons. The purpose of these securing measures is – through a preliminary examination of the appearance of a good right of the subject to claim for payment of a ben - efit from another – to enable creditors to obtain the
National Transparency Platform A final mechanism for the identification of assets – information about which may be accessed by any third party that submits a request for information – is the use of the National Transparency Platform. Although publicising the assets of legal entities is not the main purpose of the platform, it is possible to obtain infor - mation on legal relationships and assets derived from governmental relationships. The platform is adminis - tered by the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data ( Insti- tuto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Infor- mación y Protección de Datos Personales , or INAI) and enables the content of any government document (including public contracts) to be viewed – with special protection for sensitive information. Confidential Information Banking or financial information held by credit institutions In accordance with the fundamental rights recognised in Mexican law, banking information is classified as confidential information, protected by a principle known as “banking secrecy”. This principle prevents individuals from immediately accessing information related to financial transactions processed by credit institutions. However, as it is one of the most valu - able and relevant assets in judicial proceedings, there are regulated mechanisms for access to this type of information. Article 142 of the Credit Institutions Law establishes that credit institutions are obliged to provide informa - tion related to their banking operations (eg, current account contracts, credit contracts, and trust opera - tions) when requested by the judicial authority via a court order – provided the owner of the information, settlor, beneficiary, trustee, or agent is a party to the court case. The request for this information is made through the National Banking and Securities Commis - sion. This mechanism is extremely relevant because it allows individuals to: • identify the existence of bank accounts (or similar accounts in regulated credit institutions) within Mexican territory; and • know the balances of such accounts for the pur - poses of the judicial proceeding.
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