translated from Spanish: CMF proposes fines of up to $5.4 billion and increased jail sentences for insider trading in the stock market

A few days ago the Minister of Economy, Lucas Palacios, delivered details regarding the anti-abuse agenda promoted by the government of Sebastián Piñera, which, in his words, seeks to “put people at the center, make a country that is fairer and to protect competition.”
As part of the presentation of this agenda, the Commission for the Financial Market proposed to raise fines and criminal penalties for agents using insideinformation on the stock market.
According to El Mercurio, the CMF delivered this proposal this week to the Economy portfolio to be considered on the Executive’s anti-abuse agenda.
Among the measures, according to the morning, the aim is to raise the maximum fine that the regulator can apply, from 15,000 UF today ($420 million) to 200,000 UF ($5.4 billion).
In addition, the regulator points to the increase in the current penalty of all offences constituting a crime to the rank of minor presidio to its maximum degree at its lowest degree, with which the ceiling would rise to 10 years.
It should be noted that the current legislation states that the penalty departs from 61 days to 5 years.
The CMF proposal is based on a study that conducted and measured the extent to which stock prices pre-empt mergers and acquisitions. The results of the analysis – published in El Mercurio – showed that Chile is in the middle of the table of all the countries considered with an overtaking of 55% before the official corporate announcement.
“While this degree of price advancement is lower than in other countries in the region (such as Argentina), it is considerably higher than in advanced countries such as the U.S. or Canada,” the WBC said.
The submission of this document to the Government by the regulator is framed “in the exercise of the power conferred on the CMF to propose to the Executive any legal changes deemed necessary to ensure the proper functioning of the financial market”, Added.

Original source in Spanish