By Ricardo Lezama 
The revelations from #TelevisaLeaks, a massive whistleblower dump that implicates Mexican media giant Televisa in disinformation campaigns and defamation-for-hire operations, may soon transcend Mexico’s borders — with legal and financial reverberations headed for the United States.
At the core of this expanding firestorm lies a crucial reality: Televisa is no longer just a Mexican company. After its 2021 merger with Univision, it became a U.S.-regulated media conglomerate, subject to the laws and disclosure rules of the American financial system. The proximity to major US figures also adds a dimension that some of these services could implicate individuals with cross-border interests.
Media Giant Has U.S. Financial Obligations
The merger between Televisa and Univision, which formed TelevisaUnivision, created a binational media empire designed to dominate Spanish-language broadcasting in both the U.S. and Latin America. But that merger also came with strings: the newly combined company is now partially traded on U.S. markets, and therefore beholden to SEC regulations, investor transparency requirements, and potential scrutiny under U.S. corporate and intellectual property law.
According to legal experts, TelevisaUnivision’s obligation to disclose material risks to its shareholders extends to reputational and legal damage caused by internal misconduct — precisely what’s being alleged in the leaks.
Leak Revelation
The core of the leaks involves a now-exposed unit within Televisa, nicknamed “El Palomar”, allegedly responsible for fabricating media campaigns. They operated out of Mexico City, the capital, so that these could influence politics at a national level. According to the leaks, they were tasked with defaming business rivals, undermine political adversaries, and shape public narratives using fake accounts, manipulated headlines, and unauthorized use of rival corporate branding.
The source of the leak, Germán Gómez, does indeed have a lot of credibility. Gomez was reportedly an active participant in internal communications and has released 5 terabytes of audio recordings, emails, and planning documents.
In Mexico, such tactics fall into murky legal terrain — with protections for whistleblowers and lax enforcement for media misconduct. In other words, anything goes. But in the U.S., the standards are higher and the penalties more severe, especially when it comes to publicly traded media companies with additional FCC regulations, for instance, transparency issues for ADR holders could center around failure to disclose material risks to investors, violations of intellectual property, and unfair business practices under antitrust law.
Any number of these risks could be multiplied depending on how many US based suits take place from the side of the victims. To some extent, the operations betray two things about Mexico based companies like Televisa. For all their glitz and power, their hubris makes them act as if they are still in a small town where the regulatory framework can be fully controlled by their team. Their hubris has overpowered their ability to anticipate risks. This could spell disaster for their investors.