Cuatrecasas

Counsel

Alejandra Palacios is an expert on market regulation, particularly focusing on economic competition. Before joining Cuatrecasas, she led the Mexican antitrust agency (“COFECE”) for eight years, starting with a four-year appointment then a ratification for an additional four years. She was the first woman to chair this agency, leading a team of 450 professionals handling unprecedented national antitrust cases in the country. Under her leadership, the agency was recognized as one of the 15 leading competition agencies in the world and became a reference in Latin America. As head of the agency, she participated in hundreds of merger notification procedures and investigations on monopolistic practices, illegal mergers, barriers to competition, and conditions of effective competition or substantial power. She was also responsible for defending the actions of COFECE in many constitutional control procedures (amparo proceedings and actions of unconstitutionality) before the different bodies of the Mexican judiciary. Alejandra was vice president of the International Competition Network (ICN) that comprises over 130 global competition agencies and she was a member of the board of directors of the OECD Competition Committee. She is currently a board member of Grupo Alfa, Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) Mexico, as well as the Escuela de Negocios del Tecnológico de Monterrey and the Pacific Counsel on International Policy.