Carlos Mena LaBarthe

Carlos Mena Labarthe is a partner in the Mexico city office. His practice focuses on antitrust and competition, investigations and compliance.
Mr. Mena-Labarthe advises and represents clients before governmental authorities and in administrative litigation.
After being the first head of the Investigative Authority (Chief Prosecutor) at the Federal Economic Competition Commission (COFECE), he advises clients in relation to all competition issues.
In addition, he is the co-leader of the Firm’s investigation and regulatory compliance practice, where he advises on internal investigations, government investigations and compliance. Mr. Mena was involved in the creation of the new national anti-corruption system and in the training of the new operators of the system. Mr. Mena has experience in the coordination of procedures in different jurisdictions, especially in Latin America.
Prior to joining the Firm in July 2017, Mr. Mena worked for more than ten years at the competition authority, where apart from being the first head of the Investigative Authority, he was General Director of Investigations of Cartels and Head of the Planning, Public Relations and International Affairs unit. He worked in the United States Federal Trade Commission and was the representative of Mexico in various international forums, including the OECD, the International Competition Network and the BRIC countries meetings.
In these tasks he developed the investigation procedures, including the surprise search processes, the leniency program, the forensic technology laboratory and the market intelligence unit.
He led paradigmatic cases in sectors such as food, medicine, hospital services, transportation and financial services, among others. He was also responsible for negotiating the Federal Economic Competition Law that came into force in 2014.
Mr. Mena obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from ITAM with honors in 2003. He also obtained a master’s Degree in Business Law from the Madrid Bar Association in Spain, with notable mention in 2004, and another master’s Degree in Economic Regulation by the London School of Economics and Political Science of the United Kingdom with the prize for the best performance of his class in 2005.
In the academic field, he has been a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) since 2007, where he founded the Law and Regulation and the Competition Law diploma courses and has co-authored seven books on Economic Competition, Regulation and Energy.
In 2015 he was selected as one of the 40 best competition lawyers under 40 years of age in the world by the Global Competition Review.
He is a member of the International Task Force of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, a member of the Editorial Committee of the Global Competition Review magazine and a columnist for El Financiero and Competition Policy International.