The Financial Market Commission (CMF) resolved to reject the motion for reconsideration filed by Asesorías e Inversiones A&C SpA, a company linked to Cristián Araya Fernández, former investment manager of Banchile Corredores de Bolsa and sanctioned in the Cascadas case. With this, the securities market regulator decided to uphold the fine of 25,000 UF imposed on September 10, 2026. The CMF based its sanctioning resolution on serious and repeated violations of Articles 52 and 53 of the Securities Market Law (LMV), determining that between March 2022 and September 2024 the company carried out 34,038 fictitious quotes to artificially alter the price of shares on the Santiago Stock Exchange, obtaining an estimated profit of $860,062,000.
"The company did not provide new evidence in its motion for reconsideration, while the reiterated arguments had already been examined and weighed in the sanctioning resolution," the resolution stated. According to the document, the Spoofing/Layering scheme consisted of entering "decoy" orders (to buy or sell) with no real intention of executing them. When a third party matched or improved the price, the company would cancel the order within seconds and immediately enter an opposite position to profit from the distorted price.
In its resolution, the CMF reiterated that the orders did not serve a genuine economic function and constituted false signals to the market. With the legal reform of April 2021 (Law No. 21,314), Article 52 covers any "action" intended to manipulate prices. The regulator emphasized that for a regular exchange operator with "direct routing," it is not permissible to claim ignorance of the current regulations. The CMF likewise confirmed that the information from the brokerage firms (Tanner and BTG Pactual) and the statements of the operators themselves prove the systematic pattern.
In its resolution, the regulator ratified that the fine falls under Article 37 No. 2 letter a) of DL 3,538 (up to 100,000 UF) and that the seriousness of the conduct, the risk to the market, and the high profit obtained ($860 million) justify the amount despite the company's reported reduced asset capacity.
Arguments
To have the sanction annulled or substantially reduced, the fined company argued that entering real orders exposed on the order book does not constitute "fictitious quoting" and that the law did not cover this scheme with sufficient clarity (criticizing the lack of typicity). In parallel, the fined company invoked a 2019 institutional proposal by the CMF in which the same regulator raised the need for legal reforms to punish spoofing, arguing that there had been a change of criteria or an error of prohibition.
The sanctioned company also questioned that the accusation was based on Excel spreadsheets from the CMF itself and not on direct official certificates from the Stock Exchange regarding the 34,038 sequences. Likewise, it characterized the 25,000 UF fine as disproportionate, far exceeding its own taxable capital of around $52 million and its assets of $69 million, in addition to departing from historical sanctioning precedents.
Furthermore, the defense alleged a violation of the principle of non bis in idem, arguing that the CMF punished the same conduct twice by subsuming it in parallel under Articles 52 and 53 of the Securities Market Law.
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