Impact note

National Antitrust Commission: the 2025 amendment and what changed for companies

Higher fines, information exchange as a form of collusion, merger decisions within 30 days and a different authority.

LEXURE Regulatory Compliance Practice Team 6 min read Regulatory status verified in 2026

On July 16, 2025, a broad amend­ment to the Fed­eral Eco­nomic Com­pe­ti­tion Law (Ley Fed­eral de Com­pe­ten­cia Económica) was pub­lished. No new law was enacted, but the amend­ment replaced the author­ity, raised the fines and changed how agree­ments between com­peti­tors are ana­lyzed. Many inter­nal com­pe­ti­tion poli­cies still cite a com­mis­sion that no longer exists, and many sales teams still attend trade asso­ci­a­tion meet­ings under the old rules.

What changes for your company

A dif­fer­ent author­ity. The National Antitrust Com­mis­sion (Comisión Nacional Anti­mo­nop­o­lio) is now the author­ity on the matter (Arti­cle 3o., sec­tion V). It is a decen­tral­ized public agency within the sector headed by the Min­istry of Econ­omy (Sec­re­taría de Economía), with tech­ni­cal and oper­a­tional inde­pen­dence (Arti­cle 10). Every legal ref­er­ence to the former com­mis­sion is under­stood to refer to the new one (sixth tran­si­tional arti­cle), and prior acts and res­o­lu­tions remain in effect (sev­enth tran­si­tional arti­cle).

Infor­ma­tion exchange, within the unlaw­ful agree­ment. Abso­lute monop­o­lis­tic prac­tices are con­tracts, agree­ments, arrange­ments, com­bi­na­tions or exchanges of infor­ma­tion between cur­rent or poten­tial com­peti­tors whose pur­pose or effect is to fix prices, restrict supply, divide mar­kets or coor­di­nate bids in ten­ders (Arti­cle 53). The risk grows because of two changes: infor­ma­tion exchange became a form of agree­ment for any of those con­ducts, and the law expressly included poten­tial com­peti­tors. These prac­tices are null and void by oper­a­tion of law.

Cham­bers and asso­ci­a­tions as eco­nomic agents. The law expressly includes asso­ci­a­tions, busi­ness cham­bers and pro­fes­sional groups in that con­cept (Arti­cle 3o., sec­tion I). A trade asso­ci­a­tion meet­ing at which com­peti­tors share prices, mar­gins or capac­ity plans can be the set­ting for an unlaw­ful infor­ma­tion exchange, and lia­bil­ity extends both to the cham­ber and to the par­tic­i­pat­ing com­pa­nies.

Higher fines. Abso­lute monop­o­lis­tic prac­tices are pun­ish­able by a fine of up to fif­teen per­cent of the eco­nomic agent’s income, and rel­a­tive prac­tices by up to ten per­cent (Arti­cle 127, sec­tions IV and V).

Merger con­trol. Trans­ac­tions that exceed the thresh­olds of Arti­cle 86 must be noti­fied before clos­ing; for exam­ple, when the value of the trans­ac­tion in Mex­i­can ter­ri­tory exceeds 16,000,000 Units of Mea­sure­ment and Update, or UMA (MXN 1,876,960,000). Acts car­ried out with­out noti­fi­ca­tion have no effect, and they cannot be recorded in the cor­po­rate books or reg­is­tered in the Public Reg­istry of Com­merce until autho­riza­tion is obtained (Arti­cle 86). The period for the Board (Pleno) to issue its deci­sion was reduced to thirty days from receipt of the noti­fi­ca­tion or of the addi­tional infor­ma­tion (Arti­cle 90).

Immu­nity for the first to coop­er­ate. The agent that is first to pro­vide evi­dence of an abso­lute prac­tice before an inves­ti­ga­tion begins, coop­er­ates fully and ends its par­tic­i­pa­tion receives the min­i­mum fine; those who come for­ward later may obtain reduc­tions (Arti­cle 103). Anyone who obtains this ben­e­fit has no crim­i­nal lia­bil­ity for the offense under Arti­cle 254 bis of the Fed­eral Crim­i­nal Code (Código Penal Fed­eral).

What to do and by when

The amend­ment has been in force since July 17, 2025, and the new Com­mis­sion has been oper­at­ing since Octo­ber 2025.

  1. Update your com­pe­ti­tion policy to name the cur­rent author­ity and reflect the new Arti­cle 53.
  2. Review what infor­ma­tion you share with com­peti­tors, directly or through cham­bers and asso­ci­a­tions, includ­ing poten­tial com­peti­tors.
  3. Train your sales team on pro­hib­ited con­duct and on how to act at trade asso­ci­a­tion meet­ings.
  4. Before any acqui­si­tion, merger or joint ven­ture, cal­cu­late whether it exceeds the thresh­olds of Arti­cle 86, and do not close with­out autho­riza­tion.
  5. Define an inter­nal pro­ce­dure to eval­u­ate, with advice, an appli­ca­tion to the immu­nity pro­gram if you detect such con­duct.
  6. Review your dis­tri­bu­tion and exclu­siv­ity con­tracts, because rel­a­tive prac­tices will also be assessed under the broader stan­dard of harm to com­pe­ti­tion.

Recommendations to mitigate risk

Clos­ing a merger that should have been noti­fied with­out prior autho­riza­tion is pun­ish­able by a fine of 50,000 UMA (MXN 5,865,500) and up to eight per­cent of income (Arti­cle 127, sec­tion VIII). Indi­vid­u­als who par­tic­i­pate in monop­o­lis­tic prac­tices on behalf of a com­pany may be barred for up to five years from hold­ing man­age­ment posi­tions in com­pa­nies in the market and fined up to 350,000 UMA (MXN 41,058,500), under sec­tion X. In crim­i­nal mat­ters, Arti­cle 254 bis of the Fed­eral Crim­i­nal Code pun­ishes with five to ten years of impris­on­ment agree­ments between com­peti­tors to fix prices, restrict supply, divide mar­kets, coor­di­nate ten­ders or exchange infor­ma­tion for those pur­poses.

How we approach it at LEXURE

We update your com­pe­ti­tion policy, train your sales and man­age­ment teams, review your par­tic­i­pa­tion in cham­bers and asso­ci­a­tions, and ana­lyze the thresh­olds of each cor­po­rate trans­ac­tion before it closes.

If your com­pe­ti­tion policy pre­dates the 2025 amend­ment, sched­ule a diag­nos­tic meet­ing with us.

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Legal basis

  1. Federal Economic Competition Law, last amended in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) on November 14, 2025, Articles 3o., sections I and V, 10, 53, 86, 90, 103 and 127, and sixth and seventh transitional articles of the decree published in the DOF on July 16, 2025. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  2. Federal Criminal Code, Article 254 bis. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  3. Chamber of Deputies, Parliamentary Gazette, Activity Report of the National Antitrust Commission, fourth quarter of 2025. Official publication (opens in a new tab)
  4. 2026 value of the Unit of Measurement and Update, National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). Official publication (opens in a new tab)

This note is for information only and describes the law in force on the verification date. It is not legal advice on a specific matter. It is a translation of the Spanish original: Mexican law is published in Spanish, and the official Spanish texts prevail.

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