RPPJ — Corporate Criminal Liability in Chile

RPPJ stands for "Responsabilidad Penal de las Personas Jurídicas" — corporate criminal liability in Chile. It is the possibility for a legal entity (company, foundation, association, civil or commercial partnership) to be prosecuted and sanctioned criminally, independently from its directors and employees, for certain offenses committed in its interest or for its benefit. RPPJ was introduced by Law No. 20.393 of 2009 and significantly expanded by Law No. 21.595 of 2023 on Economic and Environmental Crimes.

The central regime is Law No. 20.393, which defines the predicate offenses, the requirements for attributing liability to a legal entity, the applicable sanctions, and the Crime Prevention Model as a defense tool. Law No. 21.595 on Economic Crimes substantially expanded the catalogue of offenses for which a legal entity may be held criminally liable (from a handful to hundreds of criminal types) and redesigned the sanctions system. Both laws operate together and must be read jointly when designing a compliance programme.

Law 21.595 radically expanded the scope of RPPJ. Where the original Law 20.393 covered only a few offenses (bribery, money laundering, terrorism financing, receipt of stolen goods), Law 21.595 incorporated an extensive catalogue of economic and environmental crimes — including tax offenses, antitrust offenses, securities-market offenses, offenses against public administration, environmental offenses and others — as triggering events for corporate criminal liability. It also reorganized the sanctions, strengthened ancillary measures and refined the requirements for the Crime Prevention Model.

Private-law legal entities (corporations, limited-liability companies, EIRL, SpA, partnerships, associations, foundations, NGOs) and, in certain cases, state-owned enterprises can be held criminally liable. Liability is triggered when an offense is committed in the interest or for the benefit of the legal entity by its owners, controllers, principals, senior executives, representatives or those performing management and supervision functions, or by natural persons under the direction or supervision of the foregoing.

The Crime Prevention Model (MPD) is the internal management, supervision and control system that a legal entity adopts to prevent the commission of offenses giving rise to RPPJ. Law 20.393 regulates it as the principal defense mechanism: if the entity demonstrates that it adopted and implemented organisation, administration and supervision models to prevent offenses such as those committed, it may be exempt from or have its liability mitigated. The MPD must include a prevention officer, identification of risk activities, protocols and procedures, whistleblowing channels, internal administrative sanctions, and periodic supervision.

Sanctions include criminal fines (graduated by severity and economic capacity), dissolution or cancellation of legal personality, temporary or permanent prohibition from contracting with the State, partial or total loss of tax benefits, publication of an extract of the sentence, forfeiture, and supervision by an independent person or entity. Law 21.595 reordered this catalogue and reinforced the system of ancillary measures, adding effective implementation of the Crime Prevention Model as a condition for mitigation.