CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Jorge Bofill and César Ramos, Bofill Escobar Silva
In October 2024, Law No 21,713, on Tax Compliance, was enacted and elevates the penalties for tax fraud as well as established fines of up to USD215,000 for the person or legal entity that designed a declared tax fraud scheme. Tax fraud is usually punishable with three years and one day to ten years of imprisonment. However, some cases, such as fraudulently obtaining tax refunds, can be sanctioned with three to 15 years of imprisonment. As mentioned in 3.3 Anti-Bribery Regulation , Chilean legislation does not include a specific obligation to prevent bribery, tax evasion or any other corporate crime, a general legal obligation to report any crime, nor does it oblige companies to maintain compliance programmes. Nonetheless, the effective implementa - tion of a suitable crime-prevention model may be an In the Chilean legal system, there is no specific crimi - nal sanction related to financial record-keeping. How - ever, there are many rules that impose on corporations an obligation to maintain correct accounts and a duty to provide reliable financial information. There are, nevertheless, specific criminal sanctions for acts that consist of providing false or misleading information to the market (including false information contained in financials delivered to the Financial Mar - ket Commission) in connection with publicly traded securities. exculpatory factor for the legal entity. 3.6 Financial Record-Keeping The penalties for these crimes are established in Law No 18,045, and have been mentioned previously in 3.4 Insider Dealing, Market Abuse and Criminal Bank- ing Law . 3.7 Cartels and Criminal Competition Law Competition law identifies two stages of prosecu - tion in cases of collusion: (i) an administrative phase, where the National Economic Prosecutor files a law - suit against the identified offenders before the Court of Defence of Free Competition; and (ii) when, and only if convicted in the administrative phase, the National Economic Prosecutor, in severe cases, decides also to file a criminal action before criminal courts.
The National Economic Prosecutor is forced to initi - ate the criminal prosecution of collusion cases when the facts under investigation “seriously jeopardise free competition”. If convicted in the administrative phase, offenders are exposed to sanctions of up to 30% of the revenue derived from the product or service associated with the offence. If the amount is indeterminable, compa - nies are subject to a maximum fine of 60,000 Annual Tax Units (UTA). Additionally, executives may be dis - qualified for a period of five to ten years from serving as directors of certain enterprises, and the company will be banned from contracting with any state author - ity or institution. During the subsequent criminal procedure, anyone who entered into or ordered the entry into, executed or organised an agreement involving two or more com - petitors to fix the sale or purchase prices of goods or services in one or more markets; limit their production or supply; divide, allocate or distribute market areas or quotas; or affect the outcome of tenders carried out by public companies, private providers of public services, or public entities, risks imprisonment for a term ranging from three to ten years. Law No 21,595 establishes that the cases of collusion will always be considered “economic crimes”. 3.8 Consumer Criminal Law The Consumer Protection Act (Law No 19,496) does not contain criminal offences as such, but rather a catalogue of offences isolated from criminal law, such as unjustified refusal to sell or misleading advertising. Therefore, there is no consumer criminal law as such, and the generic crime of fraud or injuries (for sale of defective products) will be applied in cases that seek to establish criminal responsibility for an act against consumers. Outside Consumer Law, Law No 21,595 sanctions several crimes regarding consumers, such as fraudu - lently altering prices of goods and services. The pen - alty for this crime ranges from 18 months to ten years of imprisonment, depending on the necessity of the goods or service.
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