On February 23^rd 2010, the Mexican Competition Commission (MCC) fined a group of six pharmaceuticals companies for antitrust violations. The MCC has argued that these companies incurred in collusive practices in order to reduce competition and hence to inflate the prices to which the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS), on behalf of the Mexican Government, acquired medicines during the period 2003-2006. The MCC decided to impose fines amounting 21.5 millions of Mexican pesos to each of these companies. The full decision (and analytical reasoning) of the Mexican authority in this case can be consulted here.

Once again, the “deterrence power” of these fines has been questioned by some analysts, so that the discussion regarding a more “appropriate level” of fines in Mexico will be, no doubt, one of the main topics of debate in the next set of reforms that the Mexican Congress will discuss during the coming months.