Chile: A Dispute Resolution: Litigation Overview

Background

Chile remains a predominantly ordinary court-driven jurisdiction for the resolution of civil and commercial disputes. Although arbitration and mediation have become increasingly important, the ordinary court system – comprising the courts of first instance, the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court – continues to hear by far the largest volume of business disputes.

Ordinary courts have general jurisdiction over civil and commercial matters that have not been assigned by law to a specialised court or submitted to voluntary or mandatory arbitration. They also retain an important, albeit limited, role in arbitral matters. The higher courts may hear those challenges and extraordinary remedies that remain available under Chilean law, including applications to set aside international arbitral awards. The courts also support arbitration at the interim and enforcement stages, since arbitrators do not possess the State’s coercive powers.

The jurisdiction of the ordinary courts extends across virtually every major regulated sector of the Chilean economy, including, among others:

• banking and financial services;
• insolvency and restructuring;
• insurance;
• energy;
• environmental matters;
• competition;
• tax;
• pensions;
• healthcare;
• water and sanitation; and
• gaming.

They also hear statutory appeals and judicial challenges arising from specialised courts and from sanctions, regulations and other measures adopted by sectoral authorities, including:

• the Financial Market Commission (CMF);
• the Superintendence of Electricity and Fuels (SEC);
• the National Consumer Service (SERNAC);
• the Superintendence of Pensions Funds;
• the Environmental Superintendence (SMA);
• the Superintendence of Sanitary Services; and
• the Superintendence of Gaming Casinos.

Current State of the Chilean Judiciary

Chile has a professional career judiciary in which seniority and merit are central to judicial appointment and advancement. The Supreme Court exercises administrative supervision over all the courts in the country and sits in specialised chambers dealing with civil, criminal, constitutional and administrative, and labour and social-security matters.

The judicial system is generally regarded as institutionally sound, but it faces sustained pressure from rising caseloads and procedural delay. Each individual civil court in Santiago receives close to 20,000 new filings per year, while regional courts typically receive less. An ordinary civil action takes an average of approximately 554 days at first instance and 806 days where a second-instance appeal is included. Proceedings before the Supreme Court may add roughly a further year in cases that reach that stage.

A further challenge is the limited subject-matter specialisation of judges within the ordinary civil courts, notwithstanding the creation of specialised tribunals for environmental, tax and customs, labour, competition, industrial property and public procurement matters, among others. High Courts’ review, particularly through the Supreme Court’s specialised chambers, partly mitigates this issue. Over time, the gap should also narrow through judicial training and the proposed reform of civil procedure, which envisages oral hearings, deeper digitalisation, broader use of technology and simplified procedures for lower-value claims. The long-pending reform has again become an active legislative issue.

Electronic Judicial Proceedings

Chile was an early regional adopter of electronic judicial proceedings. Statute No 20,886 replaced the physical case file with an electronic judicial record and established digital processing as the general rule for lawsuits, briefs, court orders, judgments, appeals, notices and other procedural acts.

Judges, lawyers and authorised parties may access the electronic record remotely and in real time, from Chile or abroad, using electronic signatures and authentication mechanisms designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of filings. The reform has materially improved access to justice by reducing the need for physical attendance merely to file documents or inspect the file, while lowering costs, shortening administrative steps and increasing transparency. It also allows clients to monitor the progress of their proceedings.

Trends in Civil and Commercial Litigation

Beyond conventional contractual and corporate disputes, three areas have generated a particularly sustained increase in litigation before ordinary courts.

Economic and financial misconduct

Many of the highest-profile and highest-value disputes between 2024 and 2026 have arisen from alleged misconduct in the financial sector, affecting fund managers, securities brokers, banks, fund contributors and private investors. These cases are inherently complex because of the technical financial matters involved, the value of the claims, the number of competent authorities and the overlap between private-law disputes, regulatory investigations and criminal proceedings involving bodies such as the CMF, the Chilean Internal Revenue Service and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

This has generated a wave of civil claims by creditors and investors seeking to recover assets or losses. Because proceedings often extend over several years, counsel must combine effective interim relief, asset-recovery strategies and close co-ordination across civil, regulatory and criminal forums.

Regulatory and public-sector litigation

The State is one of the main players in litigation before the ordinary courts, both as a direct party and as a subject of judicial review of administrative decisions, sanctions and other acts of public authorities. Delays in securing administrative permits, along with the involvement of multiple agencies applying sometimes inconsistent criteria, have led to an increasing number of companies bringing claims against the State.

The government’s recently passed “National Reconstruction and Economic and Social Development” legislation would introduce a right to compensation in certain cases involving the revocation of environmental approval resolutions. This may produce additional claims by project owners whose permits are subsequently withdrawn.

The electricity sector has been especially active. Blackouts and failures in transmission systems have resulted in sanctioning proceedings before the SEC against companies and individual executives, followed in numerous cases by judicial challenges to the resulting sanctions.

The principal disputes concern public concessions and works contracts, invalidity of administrative acts, liability for service failure and compensation for deprivation of property resulting from State action. There is little indication that this trend will abate in the near term.

Insolvency, consumer and financing disputes

Liquidation proceedings involving both companies and individuals have risen steadily, together with applications for corporate reorganisation. This trend has coincided with weak GDP growth, persistently high unemployment – 9.4% in the April–June 2026 period – and restricted access to refinancing, all of which have made consensual debt restructuring more difficult.

Consumer complaints remain concentrated in five sectors: retail, financial services, telecommunications, utilities and transportation. SERNAC continues to pursue an active enforcement agenda. According to its latest public accountability report (2025), it filed 12 consumer class actions and more than 1,000 actions in the general consumer interest during 2024.

Commercial-finance litigation has also increased, particularly in relation to the enforcement of invoice receivables assigned to factoring companies. Courts have adopted an increasingly tight approach to claims brought by assignees, especially where the underlying invoice or transaction is disputed or alleged to be fraudulent. This has increased the volume of litigation in this area.

Outlook

Civil and commercial dispute resolution in Chile remains centred on the ordinary court system. Even complex disputes conducted in arbitration or arising in specialised regulatory settings require parallel or ancillary proceedings before the civil courts, the Courts of Appeal or the Supreme Court.

As financial disputes become more sophisticated and regulatory activity expands, clients increasingly require specialised counsel capable of co-ordinating proceedings across different courts and regulators, often with cross-border dimensions. Sector-specific knowledge, strategic case management and technically rigorous defence before higher courts are therefore key differentiating factors in the Chilean litigation market.