Cofece investigates digital services market in Mexico
Mexico‘s Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) announced on Monday that it initiated an investigation into the digital services market, as well as digital products and related services.
To begin with, Cofece published a notice in the Official Journal of the Federation (DOF) through which its investigating authority reports the initiation of the complaint investigation identified with file number DE-023-2022 for the possible commission of relative monopolistic practices in the market for the development, marketing and sale of digital goods and/or services, as well as related services.
To take into account: Mexico has two authorities that promote and guarantee competition: Cofece and the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), which are autonomous constitutional agencies.
Cofece is the competition authority in all sectors of the economy, except in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors, in which case the competition authority is the IFT, which has the same powers that Cofece has in the other sectors.
However, although the LFCE sets the specific competencies of each institution, if there were a discrepancy as to their competence, the conflict would be resolved in the Collegiate Circuit Courts in administrative matters, specialized in economic competition, broadcasting and telecommunications.
Since 2017, four such cases have been resolved in the courts, three of which were related to digital markets.
Digital services
In 2021, the IFT suspended the investigation into the competition situation in digital markets of technology giants that it had initiated in October last year.
The decision was due to the fact that Cofece claimed to be the competent body to conduct the investigation, instead of the IFT.
Between 2017 and 2021, Cofece initiated 37 investigations for alleged monopolistic practices, and 21 practices were sanctioned.
In some cases, the sanctions were for collusive conducts in the health sector, energy (sale of gasoline to the public) and services (financial services, land transportation for passengers and air transportation in the national territory).
Some relative monopolistic practices were also sanctioned, such as tied sales in the energy sector. A total of 699 economic concentrations were authorized, 11 of them with conditions in sectors such as agri-food and digital platforms. Seven mergers were denied in the manufacturing, retail and distribution sectors.
