The Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece), an autonomous regulatory agency created by virtue of the Mexican Constitution, has issued a preliminary report on the Mexican e-commerce industry, in which it states that the conditions are such that there is no effective competition. Cofece has pointed out that Amazon and Mercado Libre account for 85% of the transactions and suggested some proposals aimed at changing the situation. One of them consists in banning the companies from packaging streaming services with e-commerce or from offering streaming services as an additional benefit to their e-commerce customers. The streaming services provided by the above-mentioned companies are Amazon Prime Video and Mercado Play.

According to Cofece, “this means that the platforms are free to offer streaming or any other services, so long as they are not offered within a single package of services related to the marketplace.”

The problem detected by the regulatory agency is that by offering their OTTs within the loyalty programs of their e-commerce services, Amazon and Mercado Libre generate an “artificiality” that entices and retains customers.

Being of a preliminary nature, the decision needs to be ratified. If so, Amazon and Mercado Libre will be given a six-month term to abide by it.