Mexico’s lax regulation has encouraged the unabashed growth of monopolies in the last few decades, ranging from telecommunications to beer empires. Cable television is no stranger to conflict as Televisa, the world’s biggest producer of Spanish-language content, sets its eyes on triple play amid cries from smaller rivals struggling to keep afloat.
   Eduardo Perez Motta, the head of Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission, sat down with Reuters during the Third Latin America Investment Summit to talk about a much-expected decision on a Televisa acquisition that would give the broadcaster a key push in the triple play market, where companies can offer cable TV, Internet and phone services using a single broadband link.
    Perez Motta set a series of requirements that Televisa should meet, including sharing its content with rivals, if it wants to buy a 49 percent stake in Cablemas, one of the biggest cable companies in Mexico.

The new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee says his panel plans to treat the Fed as an important institution ”composed entirely of human beings.” Democrat Barney Frank also says he wants to have a broader public debate about how the Fed’s decisions on benchmark interest rates affects U.S. jobs and wages. Frank made his remarks at the Reuters Regulation Summit.

It’s time for legislation to help U.S. shareholders who are fed up with fat executive pay and retirement benefits, says the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, says he hopes to have a bill passed by mid-2007 that would give shareholders a bigger say in how their companies are run and a chance to vote on “clawback” provisions if a CEO misses performance targets. Frank described what he has in mind while speaking at the Reuters Regulation Summit.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will take a closer look at Net neutrality and broadband access issues at a Feb. 13-14 workshop. Jeff Schmidt, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, says the agency’s goal is to determine “how should you look at Net neutrality proposals” from a competitive standpoint. A Senate bill that would stop broadband carriers from discriminatory pricing for Internet content was introduced earlier this week. 

Schmidt spoke at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.

A single, strong regulator is needed to oversee mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the head of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight says.  James Lockhart, director of OFHEO, describes his support for proposed legislation that would combine OFHEO and the Federal Housing Finance Board to oversee the trillion-dollar investments of Fannie and Freddie.

Lockhart spoke at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee will hold a series of hearings this year on the role of hedge funds and private equity in the economy. But the panel does not plan any hedge fund legislation in 2007 “and maybe never”, Chairman Barney Frank says. Frank spoke at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.

Barney Frank, new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, predicts the U.S. House will approve a bill this spring to block big retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot from expanding into banking. Frank explained his opposition to an existing loophole that lets retailers own industrial loan companies (ILCs) at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.

    The stock options scandal has mushroomed to comprise one-eighth of the FBI’s corporate fraud caseload. Sixty-one of 492 pending cases involve alleged mispricing of options, such as backdating, but that number is seen declining says James Burrus, a Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director who heads the agency’s criminal investigative division.

Faced with Congressional ire about big retailers owning banks known as industrial loan companies, federal regulators could choose to approve ILC applications with narrow conditions, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan says. U.S. banking laws generally wall off banking and commerce, but an exception allows nonfinancial firms to own ILCs, which are state-chartered and regulated by the FDIC. A six-month moratorium on ILC applications is set to expire at the end of this month.

Dugan spoke at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.

The FDIC meets at the end of this month to decide whether to agree to a congressional request that the agency extend a six-month moratorium on retailers’ applications for banks known as industrial loan companies (ILC). FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair says the agency is prepared to work “in a collaborative, supportive way” on the issue with lawmakers such as House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank.

Bair spoke at the Reuters Regulation Summit in Washington.