🇨🇱 Legislation1 Sep 2024
Chile's economic crimes law widens corporate criminal liability from September 2024
From 1 September 2024 the changes made by Chile's Economic Crimes Law (Law 21.595) to the corporate criminal liability law (Law 20.393) apply. Companies can be criminally liable for more than 200 offences, face higher fines and, for the most serious, closure. A company is liable where it had no crime prevention model, or one that was not effectively implemented, so an effective model is now the main defence.
Law 21.595 was published on 17 August 2023. Its amendments to Law 20.393 took effect on the first day of the thirteenth month after publication: 1 September 2024.
What changed
- More offences: over 200 offences, including fraud, misappropriation, money laundering, bribery, environmental and labour offences, can make a company criminally liable.
- Liability test: a company is liable where it had no crime prevention model, or one not effectively implemented.
- Effective model: it must identify risky activities, set protocols to prevent and detect offences, provide secure reporting channels and impose internal sanctions.
- Penalties: higher fines, and temporary or permanent closure for the most serious offences.
What to do
Boards of Chilean companies should review their crime prevention model against the new content requirements and evidence that it is applied.