Steps taken to implement and enforce the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions CHILE (Information as of June 2011) Date of deposit of instrument of ratification/acceptance or date of accession Chile signed the Convention on December 17th, 1997 and deposited its instrument of ratification with the OECD Secretary-General on April 18th, 2001. The Convention entered into force for Chile internationally on June 18th, 2001 pursuant to article 15.2 of the Convention. Implementing legislation Executive Decree No. 496, of October 10th 2001, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was published in the Official Gazette on January 30th 2002, date on which the Convention was enacted in Chile. Law No. 20,341 of April 22nd, 2009 amends the offence of foreign bribery and related sanctions. It has created a new Chapter 9bis dedicated to foreign bribery, repealing articles 250bisA and 250bisB of the Criminal Code. Both articles, which had been added to the Criminal Code by Law No. 19,829 in 2002, as part of the implementing legislation, have been replaced with new articles 251bis and 251ter in Chapter 9bis1 of the Criminal Code. Law 20.341 completes the offense of bribery of foreign public officials so that now it includes the three verbs required by the Convention: to offer, to promise and to give, thus extending its previous wording which stated: "he who offers to give..." It establishes that the foreign bribery offence can apply to bribes composed of non-pecuniary benefits. It increases the sanctions for the offence, in order that they shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, which additionally allows Chile to grant the extradition in entire agreement with the Convention. It replaces the concept of “international business transactions” by “international transactions”. It also replaces the term “public service enterprise” by “public enterprise”. The current version of the offence of foreign bribery is as follows: “§ 9bis. Bribery to Foreign Public Officials” “Section 251bis. He who offers, promises or gives a foreign public official an economic or other nature benefit, for that official or a third person, for acting or incurring in an omission in order to obtain or retain – for him or a third party – a business or an improper advantage in the field of any international transactions shall be punished with short-term confinement, medium to maximum degree, and with the fine and disqualification referred to in section 248bis, indent one. Should the benefit have a non-economic nature, the fine will range from one hundred to one thousand monthly tax units. The same penalties shall be imposed on he who offers, promises or gives the said benefit to a foreign public official for having acted or having incurred in the referred acting or omission.
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Bribery of Chilean officials and bribery of foreign public officials are now in two separate chapters because the former aims to protect public administration and the latter aims to protect international business transactions.