Mexico City, October 11th, 2022.
The Federal Telecommunications Institute (“IFT” for its acronym in Spanish) announced on October 7, 2022, that following a complaint, it has opened an investigation under file number AI/DE-002-2022, for the possible execution of abuse of dominance conducts in the market for mobile operating system application stores, and related markets, at a national level. The investigated conducts are tyings, price discrimination and the increase in rivals’ costs.
Regarding this investigation, the IFT explained that, through the application stores, users can download applications to their cell phones, which allow them to use their features, use mobile telecommunications services, and access services and content available on the Internet, from their devices.
The IFT may require economic agents in the relevant market to provide documents or information or conduct on-site inspections. In such cases, the Federal Economic Competition Law ("FECL") may compel such economic agents to cooperate with the IFT 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 IFT's investigation.
It is worth mentioning that this investigation is independent from the investigation made public this week by the Federal Economic Competition Commission (the other competition authority in Mexico) in a similar market.
The Competition and Antitrust Practice of the firm will be pleased to provide any information regarding the content of this document.
S I N C E R E L Y,
Amilcar Peredo
Fernanda Garza
León Jiménez
Juan Maria Lopez
