Our partner Rodrigo Albagli, together with Jeffrey Lehtman, partner at Miller & Chevalier, spoke exclusively with Diario Financiero and previewed what will be the Compliance Latam 2025 Forum.
Rodrigo Albagli of az and Jeffrey A. Lehtman of the US firm Miller & Chevalier discuss what will be the next regional forum in Santiago.
With the implementation of the new Economic Crimes Law, especially in relation to the liability of legal entities, the business ecosystem was forced to gradually adapt to the necessary changes required by their respective industries in terms of prevention and regulatory compliance, transforming compliance into an organizational culture within companies through the development of an appropriate prevention model, encouraged by the board of directors throughout the rest of the organization’s organizational chart and with an ad hoc compliance officer.
This is the main focus of the Latin American compliance summit, which is holding the second edition of the Compliance Latam Forum in Chile on Thursday, 27th. The forum is organized by a platform comprising the law firms Albagli Zaliasnik (Chile); Bartolome & Briones (Spain); Basham, Ringe y Correa (Mexico); Beccar Varela (Argentina); BLP Legal (present in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua); Bustamante Fabara (Ecuador), CPB (Peru); FCR Law (Brazil); Ferrere (Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia); MDU Legal (Panama); Miller & Chevalier (United States); and Posse Herrera Ruiz (Colombia).
In addition to these law firms, the platform has around 250 active collaborators in a wide range of areas, managed by Chilean firm az as a founding partner, headed by Rodrigo Albagli.
The event will bring together industry leaders, regulatory experts, and professionals involved in business ethics at The Ritz-Carlton hotel.
Chile on par with the United States?
In the run-up to the event, Diario Financiero spoke with Rodrigo Albagli (az) and Jeffrey A. Lehtman (Miller & Chevalier) about the progress of compliance in Chile, in the context of the implementation of the new Economic Crimes Law, in comparison with the rest of Latin America and the United States.
From Albagli’s point of view, the new Economic Crimes Law marks a very important milestone because “it has led to the professionalization of compliance functions in companies, as there is greater awareness of the impact of possible violations and reputational risks.” However, Jeff Lehtman’s view is striking, as he emphasizes that “from the US perspective, Chile has always been seen as the most transparent market in Latin America.”
In this regard, the lawyer explains that what has been changing in recent years “is the approach that companies take to compliance in Chile, not only multinationals, but also family and local businesses.” Therefore, for Lehtman, Chile is “close” to the United States in terms of regulation, as the laws are ‘similar’ at present, but in terms of enforcement, “there is still a gap,” he argues. This is especially true in cases of corruption and money laundering, he explains.
Albagli shares this view. In his opinion, this gap exists because in our country “there are no specialized skills or capacities to prosecute this type of crime,” either in the police or in the prosecuting authorities. In fact, the Chilean lawyer adds, “there is an economic crimes unit, but it operates under the old logic, not under the new logic that defines economic crimes.” In this regard, the founding partner of az reflects that, in the absence of practical experience, it is difficult for the various agencies to adapt, and the truth is that there have not yet been many cases under the new economic crimes law.
This is an aspect that Lehtman downplays, assuring that the United States had to go through a similar process to the one Chile is now undergoing, because “the focus really doesn’t come until we go through many scandals; that’s when the necessary money begins to be put in place to carry out the implementation.”
He insists on the point about the difference between the existence of regulation and its enforcement. “For example, the difference between Chile and Argentina. Argentina passed a criminal liability law for companies many years ago; in that sense, it was much more advanced than Chile, but that law was not enforced and the level of compliance within companies is incomparable to what exists in Chile. In other words, Chilean companies have embraced it much more strongly than Argentine companies. So it’s not just about the existence of regulations, but also about the culture and tradition of each country,” he concludes.
Similar needs and requirements
How did this network come about? Albagli explains that it happened when he and then Lehtman noticed that “the region has similar needs and requirements” in terms of compliance. Although not all countries in the region are at the same level in terms of legislation, they were all working toward the same goal because they face similar problems. This gave rise to the idea of sharing best practices within the legal world, where Chile leads in the area of economic crime because the new law “put us at a more advanced level, I don’t know if it’s a better level, but it’s more advanced” in Latin America, says the Chilean lawyer. However, in other areas, such as data protection, Brazil leads the way.
Thus, under the premise of sharing best practices, the forum will feature three panels: Rule change? How compliance adapts without losing sight of its goals; Between what is right and what is convenient: a behavioral perspective; and New dimensions of risk in the digital economy. It will also feature a talk entitled “Gen AI: Reinventing what?” with Nicolás Goldstein, current CEO of Accenture Chile.
