For Constellation Brands, the Goal is Conciliation

After the Constellation Brands’s plant in Mexicali was cancelled following a public consultation, President López Obrador asked the company to engage in dialog to find a solution that would prevent the company from leaving the country.

According to President López Obrador, after a meeting with the company directors, they have opted to solve the juridical situation in Mexico through conciliation means, rather than through a legal complaint and a subsequent trial. Both NAFTA and the upcoming USMCA encourage the use of legal means to help companies whose investments were affected by any of the parties in the treaty.

López Obrador said in his morning briefing that the company had come to accept that the decision was the result of “the people’s will” expressed through a public consultation and that the government’s hands were tied in this sense. However, President López Obrador did mention that the government is already working with Constellation Brands on analyzing other places where the company could set up shop.

Finding another state willing to receive the brewery that currently holds the production rights of Grupo Modelo brands should not be difficult. After Mexicali’s public consultation, Antonio Echevarría García, Governor of the state of Nayarit, publicly invited Constellation Brands directors to visit Nayarit and to consider investing in the state.

According to Echevarría, Nayarit not only has enough water to ensure the plant’s production but also provides legal certainty to all its investors. “We will always have the doors open for businesses that want to invest and generate jobs,” Echevarría said.

The Mexican Insurance Sector Is Ready for the COVID-19 Emergency

After S&P downgraded the rating of Mexican insurance companies because of a reduced expectation in terms of profits, Fitch Ratings assured that the Mexican insurance sector has the capital and adequate reserves to respond to the claims that the COVID-19 pandemic might generate. Though Fitch also made a revision downwards regarding the perspective of the insurance sector, Eugenia Martínez, Director of Insurances at Fitch Ratings, said in an interview with El Economista that given the solidity of insurance companies in Mexico, the current situation for these companies is stable.

According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS), the entire insurance sector in Mexico has solvency that is 3.1 times more than what is required by regulation.