Mexico City, July 4th, 2023.
The Investigative Authority of the Federal Economic Competition Commission (“COFECE” for its acronym in Spanish) announced on July 3, 2023, it has opened a complaint-based investigation with file number DE-023-2023 on alleged abuse of dominance practices in the market for the development, commercialization, and sale of digital goods and/or services, as well as related services in the Mexican territory.
In this regard, COFECE noted that this investigation focuses on products such as e-books, software, video games, photos, music, and online movies, among others. These digital goods and services are created by developers and marketed to end users through various channels. In addition, COFECE stated that it will analyze the negotiation and payment processing mechanisms associated with these transactions. In this regard, it pointed out that in 2021, video game sales in the country increased by 24% compared to the previous year, while digital book sales grew by 35% and digital photo and video sales by 19%.
COFECE may require economic agents in the relevant market to provide documents or information or conduct dawn raids. In such cases, the Federal Economic Competition Law (“FECL”) may compel such economic agents to cooperate with the COFECE and provide it with the requested information.
On the other hand, the announcement of the investigation aims to provide any interested economic agents with the opportunity of cooperating and providing any information it deems appropriate with relation to the investigated conduct or circumstances which may be contrary to the FECL. Therefore, any person or company involved in the relevant market that considers that it may have been affected will have the opportunity to contribute to the COFECE’s investigation.
The Competition and Antitrust Practice of the firm will be pleased to provide any additional information on the topic.
Sincerely:
Amílcar Peredo
peredo@basham.com.mx
León Jiménez
ljimenez@basham.com.mx
María Guadalupe Jiménez Gama
mjimenez@basham.com.mx
Juan María López
jmlopez@basham.com.mx
