Article 28 - In the United Mexican States, monopolies, monopolistic practices, monopolistic concessions, or exemptions from taxes in the terms and conditions that the laws fix remain prohibited. The same treatment will be applied to prohibiting titles of protection for industry.
As a consequence, the law shall severely punish, and the authorities will attack with efficiency all concentration or gathering in one or a few hands of the market for necessary articles of consumption and that has as its object the increase of prices; any agreement, proceeding, or combination of producers, industries, trade companies, or service enterprises that in any manner results in avoiding the free concurrence or competition among them, and obligates consumers to pay exorbitant prices; and in general all that constitutes improper exclusive advantage to the favor of one or various particular persons, and with damage to the public in general or some social class.
The functions that the State exercises in exclusive manner will not constitute monopolies in the following strategic areas: postal delivery, telegraphs, and radio telegraphy, petroleum and the various hydrocarbons, basic petrochemicals, radioactive minerals and generation of nuclear energy, electricity, and the activities that the laws that the Congress of the Union makes expressly specify. Satellite communications and railroads are priority areas for national development in terms of
Article 25 of this Constitution; the State, to exercise its control over them, and to protect the security and sovereignty of the Nation, may grant concessions or permits to maintain or establish these ways of communications or transportation in agreement with the laws on them.
The State will work with the organizations and enterprises that require it for efficient handling of strategic areas in its charge; and in their activities of priority character, where in accordance with the law, it participates by itself or with the social and private sectors.
The State will have a central bank that will be autonomous in the exercise of its functions and in its administration. Its highest priority will be to secure the stability of the buying power of the national currency, strengthening with it the governing of the national development along with the State. No authority may order the bank to give financing.
The functions that the State exercises in exclusive manner, through the central bank in the strategic areas of coining money and distribution of bills, are not monopolies. The central bank, in terms that the laws establish, and with the intervention that the competent authorities have, will regulate exchange as well as intermediary and other financial services, relying on the amount of authority necessary to carry out their regulation and provide for their observance. The conducting of the affairs of the bank will be by persons named by the President of the Republic with the approval of the Chamber of Senators, or the Permanent Commission, in the Senate's recesses, with the discharge of their office for periods of duration, and staggered in order to promote the autonomous exercise of their functions. They may be removed only for serious cause, and they may not have any other employment, duty, or commission, with the exception of those who already represent the bank, and those who have non-salaried positions in artistic, scientific, cultural, or beneficiary societies. The persons in charge of conducting the central bank will be subject to political judgment conforming to the disposition in
Article 110 of this Constitution.
Associations of workers formed to protect their own interests, and cooperative associations or societies of producers which (in defense of their interests or the general interest) sell national products in foreign markets, or industries that are the principal source of wealth of the region where the products are produced, or which are not articles of primary necessity, as long as such associations are under the watch or protection of the Federal Government or the states, and have previously obtained authorization from each of those respected legislative bodies, do not constitute monopolies. The legislatures by themselves, or by directing the Executive, may revoke (when public necessity demands it) the authorizations given for the formations of these groups.
Neither do the privileges that are given to authors and artists for the production of their works for a determinate time, nor those given to inventors and people who perfect a product, constitute monopolies.
The State (subject to the laws) may in cases of general interest concede the performing of public services, or the exploitation, use, and enjoyment of property of the Federation, except with the exceptions that the same laws prevent. The laws will set the means and conditions that assure the efficiency of performance of services and the social utilization of property, and avoid phenomena of concentration that are contrary to the public interest.
The subjection of public services to regulation will be placed at the disposal of the Constitution, and will be carried out only by means of law.
Subsidies may be granted to priority activities when they are generally of temporary nature, and do not substantially affect the finances of the Nation. The State will watch over their application, and evaluate their results.
