Legal foreign trade considerations in Mexico: Ecommerce Regulations

Mexican Regulation (Norma Mexicana) NMX-COE-001 contains the provisions to which all persons, whether individuals or corporations, who regularly offer, trade or sell goods through electronic commerce are subject to.

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It should be noted that this type of regulation is not mandatory since it is not a Mexican Official Standard (Norma Oficial Mexicana) and that this Mexican Regulation is not applicable for financial services performed through e-commerce.

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Its main purpose is to guarantee the rights of consumers who carry out transactions by e-commerce, creating an equitable framework and the facilitation of such commercial transactions, in order to provide legal security to the consumers.

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In principle, the basics of the Mexican Regulation will consist in providing to its users guidelines related to the confidentiality at the time of making transactions, the protection of personal data information and documentation and the establishment of mechanics for payment of the goods to be sold/acquired, as the case may be.

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The application of this new Mexican Regulation will be applied under the principles of technological neutrality, free will, and functional equivalence. The application of the principle of technological neutrality is extremely important since, being all different, they will not be able to have the same regulation for all, much less at a constitutional level.

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Many new technologies such as Swap, Amazon, Rappi, Uber, Mercado Libre, amongst others, are clear examples of corporations that have had to face several problems because of the lack of regulation of their goods and services in their e-commerce; therefore, this Mexican Regulation will assist them to implement in their business organization.

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Please note that the Mexican Federal Consumer Protection Law (Ley Federal de Protección al Consumidor) contains specific provisions for the protection of consumer rights in transactions carried out using electronic, optical or any other technology, and that the Federal Office for Protection (Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor) will be in charge of supervising this activities.