Diverse views and expectations have been generated by the bill that systematizes economic crimes and attacks against the environment to strengthen legal regulation by raising the standards in prosecution and punishment.
For this reason, this Wednesday, July 6, BH Compliance, held the webinar “Economic crimes: the implications of the bill”, to make a concrete descent of what will mean the new legislation currently being discussed in Congress, which is in its second constitutional procedure in the Senate, and that arouses cross-cutting support in the political spectrum.
On occasion, there was a panel composed of the lawyer, professor of criminal law, and Director of Chile Transparente, Gonzalo Medina; the Director of the Money Laundering, Economic, Environmental and Organized Crime Unit of the Public Ministry (Ulddeco), Mauricio Fernández; and the members of BH Compliance, Susana Sierra (CEO), and Francisco Bilbao (Legal Compliance Manager).
Gonzalo Medina, who has been part of the group of lawyers who have worked on the bill, explained the scope of the proposal, the concept of economic crimes, and the introduction of new crimes, penalties, and modifications, among other matters.
For his part, Mauricio Fernández referred to the vision of the Public Prosecutor’s Office concerning this project, expressing a positive view of it, since “it addresses an important part of the demand for a more systematic regulation for business-related crime”. He also stressed that this has a real chance of becoming law, beyond the proposals that have been made to reform the Criminal Code, since it has managed to pass through both chambers.
The Legal Compliance Manager of BH Compliance, Francisco Bilbao, referred to the modifications that the project will make to the Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities (20.393), focusing on the change of paradigm of Compliance, from a “crime prevention policy” to a “culture” of crime prevention”.
Finally, Susana Sierra pointed out that “any company that has its crime prevention program well implemented already has 80/20 of what is to come”, emphasizing the importance for companies to see how they are protected if they are taking care of their risk areas, their controls, and processes, and not to get caught up in the project.
He also referred to the elimination of certification about compliance programs, which the new regulations contemplate, stressing that what matters is that the company generates a culture of integrity and that it can demonstrate that it is doing everything possible to avoid crimes within its organizations, leaving aside such a legalistic view or the obligation of the law, and instead, a genuine interest in prevention.
