Regulatory Objectives and Creative Regulation: The Enforcement Process in the Mexican Competition Commission

Abstract

This paper analyzes how regulatory objectives are achieved in the Mexican Federal Competition Commission. An emphasis is made on the analysis of the environmental and institutional settings and the implications of these in its enforcement process and regulatory activity. The analysis includes the issue of regulatory decision making, the stage of intervention, regulatory rules and different styles of enforcement in regulatory agencies in their relevance for regulatory enforcement. The paper draws on the existing enforcement literature, especially the responsive regulation model and the regulatory space and dispersed regulatory action paradigms and reflects on similarities and differences in this specified case of a Mexican agency. While identifying a range of characteristics of the agency's enforcement process, it also finds there is a lack of studies of certain of the main characteristics identified. These differentiating characteristics are studied and analysed; its causes are explored in relation to the specific environment of developing civil law background and other environmental features that directly affect the possibility of achieving regulatory objectives. The paper analyses the agency's experience through time and space with special attention to the study of how it has been trying to adapt to a scenario that looks adverse to its objectives. The identification is made of an original style of enforcement which is characterized as Creative Regulation as a result of its adaptation process and the agency's drive to achieve certain objectives.