On April 23, Minister of Economy, Lucas Palacios presented a bill before the Economy Committee of the Chamber of Deputies to boost investigation and prosecution of cartels and increase penalties. This bill is part of the Executive Branch’s anti-abuse agenda, which among its objectives seeks to give the National and Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE, in Spanish) the faculty to request banking information from certain individuals, creating the figure of a reserved whistleblower and introducing new investigation techniques for this type of crime. The Committee is expected to continue discussing the bill at a future session.

The bill of the Executive Branch grants the FNE the faculty to request access to the register of banking transactions such as deposits, catchments, and transactions of persons in reserve or banking secrecy. The idea is to detect the existence of payments or commissions between competitors, evidence of executive meetings of competing companies, determine the location of companies under investigation in Chile, among others.

In his presentation, Palacios explained that the figure of the reserved whistleblower will serve to protect the identity of persons who wish to denounce an anticompetitive conduct, in order to avoid possible labor, social or personal retaliation.

He also referred to sanctions for obstructing entry procedures or the registration of the destruction of evidence and measures to safeguard electronic evidence, among others.