Investigations and trial proceedings currently being conducted by both bodies may be affected by the transition.
The constitutional reform initiative to eliminate the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) and the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) and regroup their functions into State secretariats is already generating uncertainty among investors and, if implemented, will complicate Mexico's position in the revision of the Mexico-United States-Canada Treaty (T-MEC) in 2026, warns the International Chamber of Commerce, Mexico Chapter (ICC-Mexico).
"At ICC-Mexico, we have been receiving many calls from members who are very concerned about this situation, asking us to try to explain to them how the process (of the disappearance of the bodies) will be because they are considering what to do with their investments," said Miguel Flores Bernés, lawyer and president of the Competition Commission of ICC-Mexico.
This Friday, the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved the initiative that proposes the dissolution of Cofece and IFT, in addition to five other organizations, including the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) and the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH).
The project proposes that their functions be absorbed by secretariats or other instances of the federal public administration (APF), under the argument that they currently present duplication of functions and are "costly" for the public budget.
However, there is a rush from the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who presented the initiative last February as part of a broader package of projects to reform the Mexican State – for the proposal to be approved in its terms before his term ends on the last day of next September, so there has been no discussion of how the APF will resume the functions of the bodies that are planned to be eliminated.
“This opens a vein of uncertainty in defining who will be the new authority, if it will be a collegiate body, how the new commissioners will be appointed, if there will be commissioners or if there will be a prosecutor, what will be their budget, how many people will work there, if they will be competent people or not. All this uncertainty becomes very important,” stressed Flores Bernés, who was also a commissioner of the extinct Federal Competition Commission (CFC), predecessor of the current Cofece.
The initiative passed last Friday proposes that the functions of Cofece will be absorbed by the Ministry of Economy and those of IFT by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT), but does not state whether they will be resumed through a decentralized technical body of a collegiate type, through a sub-ministry, unit or general directorate.
He also warned that both the investigations and the proceedings carried out in the form of trials that both bodies are currently carrying out could be affected in the transition if there is no continuity of specialized technical personnel. In addition, he stressed that the judicial reform underway does not specify whether the specialized courts in economic competition, telecommunications and broadcasting will be maintained or eliminated, which further contributes to the lack of certainty.
All of this, he said, calls into question Mexico's ability to go to the T-MEC review in 2026 with sufficient guarantees that its commitments regarding the defense of competition set out in that agreement can be fully fulfilled, which would put the treaty at risk.
