What Is the Employer's Liability Under the Ley Karin?
The Ley Karin puts the legal weight on the employer, not only on the harasser. The company must prevent, investigate and sanction, and the failure of that duty, more than the reported conduct itself, is what opens administrative fines and judicial claims.
This page sets out what the employer, not the harasser, is on the hook for under the Ley Karin: the affirmative duties every company owes, the three fronts of exposure when those duties fail, the difference between a company that prevented and one that did not, and where the board's governance duty sits. It closes with the questions HR and legal leads ask most.
The duty sits on the employer
The law does not merely prohibit harassment; it assigns the company an active role in preventing and processing it. These duties do not depend on company size.
- Maintain an effective duty of protection of the health and dignity of workers (Article 184 of the Labor Code), of which the harassment protocol is one expression.
- Have a prevention protocol and incorporate it into the internal regulations, with no size threshold (Articles 211-A and 154 No. 12). See the regulation and the protocol.
- Receive, investigate within the legal deadlines or refer to the Labor Inspectorate, and apply measures under strict confidentiality (Article 211-C).
When any of these fails, the exposure opens on three fronts that operate independently of one another.
Three fronts of exposure
The administrative fine is usually the smallest of the three. The judicial exposure and the organizational cost tend to weigh more.
Labor Directorate fines
Fines for breaching labor rules on the scale of Article 506, graded by company size (Article 505 bis). A missing protocol or a mishandled investigation is a fineable infraction on its own.
Fundamental-rights and dismissal claims
The worker can sue for the protection of fundamental rights (Article 489) and terminate by constructive dismissal (Article 171), claiming statutory severance with its surcharges plus damages. This is usually the largest figure.
Reputation and climate
A public or internal mishandling erodes trust, drives turnover and reaches the reputation of the company and its leadership, a cost that no fine records but that the board answers for.
The distance between these two positions is decided before any complaint arrives.
Prevented versus did not prevent
The same complaint produces very different outcomes depending on what the company had in place beforehand.
The company that prevented
Has a protocol in its internal regulations, a trained investigator and traceable deadlines. It processes the complaint by the book, documents each step and can prove diligence. The exposure narrows to the individual case, handled correctly.
The company that did not
Has no protocol, or has one it never applied. Beyond the reported conduct, its own omission becomes the case: administrative infraction, a strengthened constructive-dismissal claim and a fundamental-rights action, with diligence impossible to prove after the fact.
The board's governance duty
Labor liability rests on the employer entity, but the oversight of that compliance is a board matter.
Article 41 of Law 18.046 requires directors to apply the care and diligence people ordinarily use in their own affairs. A compliance area with fineable infractions and material judicial exposure falls squarely within that duty. The board that neither demanded a protocol nor checked that complaints were processed is not labor-liable for the harassment, but it is exposed on governance: to internal civil liability for damage to the company and to the reputational cost of the omission.
The same question, under the other laws
The exposure of those who run the company repeats across regimes. The same question arises for managers and directors under the Economic Crimes Law and for the board under the Data Protection Law, each with its own rules on who answers and how.
Is your Ley Karin compliance defensible?
The gap between an administrative note and a six-figure judicial claim is the protocol, the trained investigator and the traceable procedure. Our labor-compliance work reviews your Ley Karin program and closes the gaps before a complaint tests it.
Review our labor-compliance workFrequently asked questions
Does the Ley Karin sanction the harasser or the company?
Both, on different planes. The harasser faces the internal measures and sanctions the procedure resolves, up to dismissal. The company, as employer, answers on its own front: having prevented, investigated and sanctioned as the law requires. A poorly run procedure or a missing protocol exposes the company even if the reported conduct is not established.
Is the prevention protocol mandatory for every company?
Yes, with no size threshold. Article 211-A of the Labor Code requires every employer to draft and keep available a protocol for preventing sexual harassment, workplace harassment and workplace violence, and to incorporate it into the internal regulations (Article 154 No. 12). An SME without a protocol is in breach from day one.
What fine does the company face?
The Labor Directorate applies administrative fines for breaches of labor rules, on the scale of Article 506 of the Labor Code, graded by company size (Article 505 bis). On top of that sits judicial exposure, usually larger: damages for the protection of fundamental rights and for constructive dismissal.
What is constructive dismissal in this context?
It is the self-dismissal of Article 171 of the Labor Code: the affected worker terminates the contract attributing the breach to the employer and claims the statutory severance with its surcharges. When the company failed to handle a harassment complaint, that route becomes a concrete financial exposure, separate from the administrative fine.
Is the board liable for poor handling of the Ley Karin?
Labor liability falls on the employer as an entity. The board is not labor-liable for the act itself, but it carries a governance duty: Article 41 of Law 18.046 requires the care and diligence of a sound administrator, and neglecting a compliance area with material judicial and reputational exposure can compromise that duty toward the company itself.
Official sources
- Labor Code, Articles 184, 154 No. 12, 171, 211-A, 211-C, 489, 505 bis and 506 (protection duty, protocol, investigation, fundamental-rights claim, constructive dismissal, fines): BCN/LeyChile
- Law 21.643 (Ley Karin): BCN/LeyChile
- Law 18.046 on Corporations, Article 41 (duty of care and liability of directors): BCN/LeyChile
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