Mexico City /
The Federal Economic Competition Commission (Coffee) Yoreported that it filed the first collective action in its history against pharmaceutical companies in the country that allegedly during a period of 10 years They agreed to limit the distribution of certain medications in the country.
This action is against Casa Marzam, Casa Saba, Fármacos Nacionales and Association of Distributors of Pharmaceutical Products of the Mexican Republic.
According to the Coffeefor a decade they decided not to distribute medicines during certain days of the year, limit the quantity of medicines supplied to pharmacies and manipulate sales prices and limit discounts to pharmacies. pharmacies.
Through a statement, the Coffee explained that these behaviors reduced the availability and increased the prices of the medications in the country, generating damage that was estimated at more than 2 billion pesos.
He recalled that in 2021the Coffee sanctioned companies and 21 individuals for 903.4 million pesos, the maximum fine that the law allowed in this case, as well as disqualifying ten managers involved in the anti-competitive agreements.
Now the Coffee demands, through collective actions, that companies pay 2 thousand 316 million pesos to repair the damage.
In action, the Coffee requested the Judiciary that resources are allocated to IMSS-Wellbeing which was the sector where the damage was suffered.
What are collective actions?
The Coffee explained that collective actions in competition matters are a type of resource that allows those who have suffered damages derived from anti-competitive conduct determined by this authority, to be compensated for the damage suffered.
That is, companies violating anti-competitive conduct must repair what is determined to be the damage caused.
And the benefits that these types of actions have for the population are:
- Access to justice.
- It guarantees that those responsible for the damage repair it properly, benefiting each member of the group.
- Encourages greater responsibility and ethics in companies and entities, knowing that they can be sued for harmful practices.
- They provide efficiency to the legal system and allow various individual actions intended to make the same types of rights enforceable in a dispute, to be replaced by a single action.
M.R.A.
