Kate, Adriaan ten; Niels, Gunnar --- "Mexico’s Competition Law: North American Origins, European Practice" [2006] ELECD 544; in Marsden, Philip (ed), "Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust

Editor(s): Marsden, Philip

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845421816

Section: Chapter 27

Section Title: Mexico’s Competition Law: North American Origins, European Practice

Author(s): Kate, Adriaan ten; Niels, Gunnar

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

27 Mexico's competition law: North
American origins, European practice
Adriaan ten Kate and Gunnar Niels1


Introduction
When it came into force in 1993, many hailed Mexico's Federal Law on
Economic Competition (FLEC) as a state-of-the-art piece of competition
legislation, one that might well serve as an example for other developing
countries. We consider that the law still deserves this credit today, at least
as far as its treatment of anticompetitive practices is concerned. In this
chapter we discuss the economic criteria for the assessment of anticompeti-
tive practices under the FLEC, and how they have been applied by the
Federal Competition Commission (FCC). We do not discuss the rules on
merger control or the legal and institutional framing of the law (indeed,
with respect to the latter, the FLEC has probably been somewhat less
successful).
The first half of this chapter explains the merits of the way the FLEC
treats anticompetitive practices. These lie in particular in the explicit dis-
tinction that is drawn between hardcore cartel practices which are per se
prohibited, and other horizontal, vertical and unilateral practices which are
considered under a rule of reason. The text of the law closely reflects the
antitrust case law of the US at the time: it does not copy the, now arguably
somewhat out-of-date, wordings of the Sherman Act or EC Treaty, which is
what many other new competition regimes tend to do. The FLEC also has
some firm roots in current economic ...