CHILE Trends and Developments Contributed by: José Manuel and Felipe Curia, CoyC Minería y Regulación
Current Regulatory Landscape Over the past 10–15 years, there has been a sustained increase in regulatory density affecting all economic sectors, including the mining industry. This phenom - enon has materialised through the progressive incor - poration of rules of a diverse nature – criminal (eg, Law No 21,595 on Economic Crimes), tax (eg, Law No 21,591 establishing the Mining Royalty), environ - mental (eg, Law No 21,600 creating the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service) and labour – as well as through norms of varying hierarchical rank. These include not only statutory and regulatory provisions, but also a growing body of infra-regulatory instru - ments, particularly guidelines, instructions and admin - istrative criteria issued by the Environmental Assess - ment Service. Such developments have introduced new requirements, duties of diligence and regulatory burdens for the conduct of economic activities. In addition, there has been an increasingly intensive and demanding application of pre-existing regula - tions, as evaluation and oversight standards have evolved significantly. Indeed, it can be stated with confidence that an Environmental Qualification Reso - lution ( Resolución de Calificación Ambiental RCA) or a mine operation method permit approved a decade ago differs substantially – in terms of requirements, conditions and level of scrutiny – from those approved today. This process has not only expanded the scope of for - mal obligations borne by project proponents, but has also raised standards of control, traceability and risk management, shifting regulatory compliance from a predominantly reactive approach towards preventive models associated with strengthened corporate gov - ernance frameworks. This, in turn, has direct effects on companies’ internal organisation as well as on the legal assessment of the feasibility, continuity and com - pliance of the different stages of investment projects. At the same time – and in a certain tension with the trend described above – there has been a parallel push towards regulatory simplification and the strengthen - ing of legal certainty for investment projects. In this regard, Law No 21,770, the Framework Law on Sec - toral Authorizations( Ley Marco de Autorizaciones
Sectoriales LMAS), constitutes the most significant milestone. Nevertheless, the processing of a bill aimed at a struc - tural reform of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) System (“Environmental Assessment 2.0”) is still pending. Its stated objectives include, inter alia, enhancing legal certainty and reducing evaluation timelines. To that end, the bill proposes strengthen - ing the role of the Environmental Assessment Service as administrator of the EIA system and restricting the involvement of politically driven bodies in decision- making concerning investment projects under review. This reform, together with other initiatives required to promote investment, will need to be addressed by the new government administration taking office in March 2026, which, from a right-of-centre political orienta - tion has expressed a programmatic commitment to reducing burdens associated with permitting ( permi- sología ), advancing regulatory simplification and rein - forcing legal certainty within the regulatory system to promote investment. Law No 21,770 (LMAS) as Applied to Mining The LMAS has been recently enacted, and several key implementation milestones remain pending, upon which its overall effectiveness will largely depend. Among these is the classification of mining permits issued by the National Geology and Mining Service ( Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería SERNAGE - OMIN) – the authority responsible for mining safety oversight and for the regulation of mine closure and mining facilities – as well as permits granted by other agencies that issue authorisations relevant to mining activities. Such classification is necessary to deter - mine the application of alternative enabling techniques as an alternative to administrative authorisations, as well as the category of administrative silence applica - ble to each permit, including procedural deadlines and whether positive or negative silence applies. In any event, permits applicable to mining projects will be governed by a new set of minimum proce - dural rules and principles aimed at facilitating more expeditious processing, based on clearer and more determinate criteria, together with a dedicated state
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