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 Editorials | Issues | March 2008 
Mexico Antitrust Body Says Plan Protects Monopolies
 Jens Erik Gould - Bloomberg
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Mexico's Federal Competition Commission said a proposal to scale back an antitrust initiative favors monopolies over the public interest and thwarts efforts to reverse a lack of competition that has hurt the economy.
The proposal by lawmakers would prevent the antitrust agency from fining companies that act as monopolies by denying it information needed to determine the amount of a fine, the commission said in a statement today.
Lawmakers from President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party agreed yesterday to cap antitrust fines at 4 percent of gross domestic sales, said Representative Enrique Serrano, secretary of the lower house Economy Committee. The modified bill may go to a floor vote this week.
The changes gut the original proposal by the Party of the Democratic Revolution to increase the fines to 15 percent of fixed assets or annual revenue, whichever is greater, said Rep. Alejandro Sanchez, author of the bill.
The current maximum penalty is 75 million pesos ($6.92 million), an amount that Federal Antitrust Commission President Eduardo Perez Motta says is too low when compared with other nations. Mexico's economy has underperformed peers in the region because of lack of competition in industries including telecommunications, banking and energy, Perez Motta has said.
Under the new proposal, fines would be determined based on the market in which the company acted as a monopoly rather than as a percentage of a company's total global sales, which is the international standard practice, the antitrust agency said in the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jens Erik Gould in Los Angeles at jgould9(at)bloomberg.net |
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