CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Jorge Bofill and César Ramos, Bofill Escobar Silva Abogados
3. Scope of Application 3.1 Limitation Period Limitation periods are established in considera - tion of the nature of the criminal offence: • crimes ( crímenes ) have a limitation period of 15 years in cases where the law imposes a penalty of life imprisonment, or ten years in other cases; • misdemeanours ( simples delitos ) have a limi - tation period of five years; and • offences ( faltas ) have a limitation period of six months. The limitation period is suspended once the defendant is charged with a crime. Law No 21,212 introduced certain common rules for crimes committed by public officials, one of these being the suspension of the statute of limi - tations of the crime while the respective official is in office, in order to prevent impunity with the passage of time. If the accused leaves the country at any time during the limitation period, the limitation peri - od runs at half-speed, that is, two days abroad count as one day in Chile for the purposes of calculating the limitation period. 3.2 Geographical Reach of Applicable Legislation In principle, only crimes committed in Chile can be prosecuted before Chilean courts. There are only a few exceptions to this. The extra-territorial reach of Chilean criminal law is specifically regu - lated in the Code of Organisation of the Courts ( Código Orgánico de Tribunales ). This includes crimes committed abroad by Chileans against Chileans, if the offender returns to Chile without having been prosecuted abroad, in cases where
bribes are accepted by Chilean public officials abroad, or the bribery of a foreign public official committed by a Chilean. In addition, most of Chilean legal literature and jurisprudence understands that the Chilean state can prosecute crimes if the execution of a crimi - nal act begins in Chile, even though its effects occur in another country, or if the execution of a crime begins abroad, but it has consequences in Chile. 3.3 Corporate Liability Since the enactment of Law No 20,393 on Crimi - nal Liability of Legal Entities (2009), the list of offences for which a company can be held crim - inally liable has been extended several times. Before the enactment of Law No 21,595, com - panies could only be criminally liable for brib - ery, money-laundering, financing of terrorism, receipt of stolen goods, disloyal administration, commercial bribery, unlawful negotiation, mis - appropriation, certain conduct related to water pollution and illegal fishing activities and, from December 2022 onwards, computer crimes. Law No 21,595 on Economic and Environmental Crimes Law No 21,595 on Economic and Environmental Crimes introduced profound changes into Law No 20,393, which began to take effect in August 2024. According to this new law, companies will be criminally liable for every “economic crime” listed in Law No 21,595, whether or not they are considered economic crimes by that law. This translates into more than 200 offences, exponentially expanding the list of imputable offences. Among these, it is worth highlighting fraud, collusion, corruption between individuals, crimes related to insolvency, and environmental crimes, which are all crimes created by the same law.
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