MEXICO TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS Contributed by: Christian Lippert Helguera, Carlos Chávez Alanís, Juan Carlos Burgos Carbajal and Gerardo Rodríguez Aguilar, Galicia Abogados, S.C.
At the Crossroads of New Competition Legislation, Enforcer and Perhaps Paradigm On 20 December 2024, a constitutional amend - ment was passed mainly to the effect of transfer - ring the responsibility for enforcing competition laws across all industries and markets to a new agency within the Federal Executive, and the powers to set telecommunications and broad - casting policy and regulation to the recently cre - ated Digital Transformation and Telecommunica - tions Agency. Per such constitutional amendment, Congress was mandated to make conforming changes to the Federal Competition Act (FCA) and the Federal Telecommunications Act providing, among others, for the creation and organisation of a new competition agency. Such legislation has not been passed by Congress yet, but the Executive already submitted a bill of amend - ments to the FCA (the “Bill”) on 24 April, which is expected to be discussed and approved by Congress between June and September 2025. The discussion below is based on what has been proposed in such Bill. The New Competition Agency: Why Did We Get Here and What Can We Expect? An intent to align competition policy with the goals and objectives of the economic policies of the administration Last year, when the former president proposed the dissolution of the Federal Competition Com - mission (COFECE) and the Federal Telecom - munications Institute (IFT), he argued, among others, that such agencies had failed to act as technical and impartial bodies, that they served only private interests and that maintaining such structures resulted in waste of scarce public resources. The Bill (proposed by the current President), on the other hand, seeks to reaf- firm the preponderant role of the government
in directing competition policy, preventing anti- competitive behavior and correcting market fail - ures. It also outlines as its primary objective the reduction of economic inequality and the redis - tribution of economic power. While it is too early to say if in the future anti - trust enforcement will shift to align more with the views of the administration, there is no ques- tion that the main driver behind the dissolution of COFECE and IFT and the creation of a new agency is to put the executive again at the centre of policy and decision-making when it comes to matters that can impact the national economy. It is thus fair to expect that the administration will have a more influential role in important investi - gations and merger control cases. A single and more efficient enforcer with jurisdiction across all markets and industries The Bill introduces the creation of a new National Antitrust Commission ( Comisión Nacional Anti- monopolio , or CNA) as a decentralised agency of the Ministry of Economy, which will operate with technical and operational independence. The competition powers of the soon-to-be- extinguished COFECE and IFT will be absorbed by the CNA. According to the Bill, this institu - tional model pursues a more efficient institu - tional framework by eliminating overlapping jurisdictions and personnel. It also seeks to have a leaner regulator; the Board of the CNA will have five commissioners (including the Chair thereof), instead of the seven-member Boards of COFECE and IFT. Commissioners will con - tinue to be political appointees (appointed by the President and ratified by the Senate). As to staff, while the Bill provides that the human resources of COFECE and those of the Econom - ic Competition Unit and Preponderance Section
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