CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Jorge Bofill and César Ramos, Bofill Escobar Silva Abogados
in Chile. Judgments are a source of interpreta - tion of the law, but do not constitute precedent. Judgments are only binding in the case in which they are issued and only for the parties involved in that case. The National Public Prosecutor, which is the enti - ty entrusted with the investigation and enforce - ment of criminal offences, recently issued new instructions to which public prosecutors are subject in the context of anti-corruption inves - tigations ( Oficio Fiscalía Nacional No 278-2022, 8 April 2022). These instructions aim to achieve the effective, coherent and co-ordinated performance of the function of public prosecution. Therefore, they are binding for prosecutors only. The new instructions refer to relevant matters regarding corruption crimes, such as the con - cept of public officer, mitigating and aggravating circumstances of criminal liability, whistle-blow - ing, and several procedural matters, for instance, the possibility of reaching an agreement in order to finish investigations without a trial (ie, through a monetary settlement or deferred prosecution agreement). It also modifies the previous instruc - tion ( Oficio Fiscalía Nacional No 472-2020, 29 July 2020), specifically with respect to corrup - tion crimes related to other criminal phenom - ena, to the effects produced by the accusation with respect to certain public officials, and the application of some procedures, among others. However, it should be noted that recent changes in the legislation may lead to new instructions related to whistle-blowers. 1.4 Recent Key Amendments to National Legislation Legislation on corruption-related crimes has been subject to important amendments over
the past decade, such as the enactment of Law No 20,393 on the Criminal Liability of Legal Enti - ties (2009) and Law No 21,121 on Prevention, Detection and Persecution of Corruption (2018). However, over the past 12 months, several key amendments have been brought. Law No 21,595 Systematising Economic Crimes and Offences Against the Environment Law No 21,595 (17 August 2023) systematises economic crimes and offences against the envi - ronment. Based on the diagnosis of the general inadequacy of the previous system for the eco - nomic crimes defined in Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 of that law, the amendments to this law have creat - ed a differentiated set of rules for sentencing, by restricting the effect of mitigating and aggravat - ing factors, mostly unrelated to business crime, and replacing them with a specific catalogue. In addition to this, it limits the applicability of alternatives to imprisonment, such as probation, and introduces the general confiscation of prof - its, reforms the system of fines and introduces relevant changes to the statute of liability of legal persons (fully in force since September 2024), eliminating the requirement of the benefit of the company, and extending both the catalogue of crimes and persons whose intervention gener - ates the liability of the legal person. Finally, it also introduces new economic and environmen - tal crimes and modifies the wording of several crimes currently in force in order to solve the difficulties of interpretation and application that have arisen in practice. As an example of these modifications, with this new law, the definition of recipients of commercial bribes has been expanded to include directors and administra - tors.
83
CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook