The Mexican government sent the new legislation to congress for approval last week, but Slim has said that the “confiscatory proposal rewards the chronic lack of investment on the part of our competitors to the detriment of consumers”.
The legislation is designed to cut Slim’s share of the Mexican market by 50% in a bid to increase competition, but the billionaire’s telecoms division, América Móvil, is not the only one with concerns over its implementation.
The bill states that the Latin American conglomerate must provide interconnection services to other phone companies for free, to which the company said: “It is surprising that they are trying, by law, to oblige a company to invest in order later to oblige it to sell its services to its competitors for $0.”
In a statement, America Móvil continued to say that the bill was not in line with the guiding principle of constitutional conform, and prevents Telmex – Slim’s Mexican subsidiary – from being able to deliver TV services.
“That creates barriers to entry to markets that are highly concentrated – as the broadcast and pay TV markets are – protecting the economic player that is predominant in broadcast and has market power in restricted TV, to the detriment of competition and consumers.”
The company concluded that it was crucial for both the Mexican government and congress to rethink the proposal as a matter of protecting legal and economic security.
