Benjamín U. Salinas.

Benjamín is a competition and regulatory attorney with over a decade of experience in the telecom and high-tech industries. Before joining The Firm, he served as Legal Director for Mergers and Acquisitions at the Federal Communications Institute (IFT), where he oversaw merger control and regulatory review of several large global transactions involving IT services, infrastructure, satellite communications, cloud computing, data centers, digital platforms, big data, media, among others. He also drafted IFT´s opinions and decisions in more than six hundred cases involving licenses, authorizations, changes of control and other relevant corporate transactions in the IT industry and contributed to the design of rules for more than eight telecom auctions and bidding processes, including the clearance of there in. In addition, he is an expert in regulatory enforcement and compliance, the design of cross-border businesses’ divestitures and corporate spinoffs, and regulatory and antitrust litigation before Mexican Federal Courts.

Benjamín earned his law degree (cum laude) at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in 2012 and obtained a degree in American Law, with concentration in Intellectual Property Law from Boston University Law School in 2021 (Class Marshall).

Benjamín has lectured at the OCDE Global Competition Forum and the OCDE Latin American Competition Forum on several topics, including merger control, digital markets, institutional design of competition authorities and gun-jumping behavior. He practiced law in Spain in 2018, at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, and was a volunteer attorney at the Massachusetts Trial Court Service Center in 2021 and 2022.

Recent work highlights include:

Participation by Benjamín prior to joining the firm.

• Nokia-Alcatel Lucent. Conducted regulatory and legal assessment of RAN technology and equipment, and 2G, 3G and 4G technologies and services.
• AT&T-Time Warner. Conducted legal assessment of unilateral, vertical and coordinated antitrust effects of this merger transaction. Designed, monitored and enforced separate measures on AT&T, Sky Mexico and HBO LAG.
• Century Link-Level 3. Competitive, regulatory and legal assessment of submarine cable, internet access, international connectivity and CDN technology markets.
• The Walt Disney Company-Twenty First Century Fox. Designed, monitored and enforced the divestment, sub-licensing and selling of the Fox Sports Mexico pay-tv channels. Assessed and drafted decisions on the monitoring trustee, selling trustee and independent administrator in the divestiture process. Litigated the divestiture process in federal courts.
• Live Nation-Ticketmaster. Conducted competitive and legal assessment of private radiocommunication systems markets and cleared the transfer of telecom licenses.
• Canadian Pacific Railway-Kansas City Southern. Conducted legal assessment of the transfer of licenses for railway communications, signaling equipment and rail operating centers.
• Warner Bros-Discovery. Competitive and legal analysis on the markets for provision and licensing of audiovisual content to pay-tv operators.
• Univision Holdings-Grupo Televisa and regulatory assessment on the markets for licensing of audiovisual content in pay tv, OTT services, and OTT and digital platform advertising services, among others.
• Grupo Televisa-Sky México. Competitive and legal assessment of the transaction applying the rule of control consolidation.
• General Atlantic Partners-Savina Holdings. Assessed and cleared antitrust concerns for the merger of investment funds and portfolio entities.
• Eutelsat-One Web. Competitive, regulatory and legal assessment of the markets for satellite capacity, video content distribution, and services provided by LEO (low earth orbit) satellites.
• CFE-Altán Redes. Assessed and designed behavioral and structural remedies to safeguard the constitutional rule of prohibiting telecom operators to exercise influence in the operation of the Mexican shared wholesale network (Red Compartida Mayorista).
• Drafted the IFT merger control guidelines, 2017 and 2022 editions.