CMF Fine on A&C SpA Over 34,038 Fake Orders in Chile

CHILE · MARKETS

Chile’s financial regulator penalised a Santiago trading firm for placing and cancelling orders it never meant to fill. The decision can still be challenged.

The CMF fine on A&C SpA landed on 10 September 2026 and closed a long market-abuse case in Chile. The regulator penalised the Santiago trading firm over 34,038 fictitious share orders.

What the CMF fine on A&C SpA punished

The council of the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF) issued Resolution 9913 on 10 September 2026. The regulator listed it publicly on 15 September 2026.

The case began with a referral from the CMF’s market conduct supervision unit in 2024. A prosecutor inside the regulator opened a formal investigation the following year.

Between 13 March 2022 and 12 September 2024 the firm placed buy or sell orders it did not intend to fill. It cancelled them within seconds, the resolution found.

Once another investor matched or improved the price, A&C pulled the order and entered the opposite one. That second order then traded at the same price or better.

The CMF counted 34,038 such cases and put the gain at about 860 million Chilean pesos (US$907,000). Rates here are from 23 September 2026, about 948 pesos to the dollar.

The size of the penalty and how it was set

The penalty is 25,000 Unidades de Fomento, Chile’s daily inflation-linked unit of account. That is about 1.02 billion Chilean pesos (US$1.08 million).

Only the company was penalised. The four shareholders named in the resolution were not sanctioned individually.

They are Cristián Araya Fernández, Naim Jadue Ganem and Alejandro Parraguez Botello, each with 26.5 percent. The estate of Felipe Correa Orzzoli holds the remaining 20.5 percent.

The CMF called the breach serious and repeated. It cited the first paragraphs of articles 52 and 53 of Chile’s Securities Market Law, Law 18,045.

The resolution was signed by the CMF’s chair, Catherine Tornel León, and three fellow commissioners. No dissenting vote is recorded in the text.

The four-year limit that shrank the case

The regulator’s investigator had charged 72,252 cases going back to 4 January 2021. The council refused to count most of them.

Charges were served on 13 March 2026, and article 61 of Decree Law 3,538 sets a four-year limit. Anything before 13 March 2022 was therefore out of time.

That left 34,038 cases inside the window. It also reduced the gain the regulator was able to count.

The investigator had put the gain across the full period at about 1,842 million Chilean pesos (US$1.94 million). Only the smaller figure survived the time limit.

Lawyers for the firm argued the orders ran through normal exchange channels and that the file lacked detail on other traders’ orders. The council rejected those arguments.

What this means for expats and investors in Latin America

If you hold Chilean shares through a local broker, this case touches the prices you see. Decoy orders make the order book look deeper than it really is.

A&C reached the exchange through Direct Market Access, a service that lets approved clients route orders themselves. Two brokers, BTG Pactual and Tanner, granted that access in 2020.

Neither broker was sanctioned in this resolution. The finding is against A&C alone.

For foreign residents moving money into Chile, the practical lesson is simple. The regulator does police the order book, and it publishes every sanction it issues.

Chile’s regulator supervises banks, insurers, brokers and listed companies under one roof. Its sanctions database is free to search and updated through the month.

What happens next and what is not known

The firm can ask the CMF to reconsider within five working days of being notified. It can also take the decision to the Santiago Court of Appeals within ten working days.

The resolution sets out both routes and their deadlines in its closing paragraph. It does not say what the firm intends to do.

As of 23 September 2026, the CMF’s public sanctions record shows no ruling on any challenge. The firm has not said publicly whether it will appeal.

The resolution orders payment through Chile’s state treasury. Whether the money has been paid has not been made public.

The resolution also names three traders who operated the firm’s exchange terminals. None of them was sanctioned in this decision.

Chile’s small market and why fake orders bite

Chile’s equity market is modest by global standards, and trading is concentrated in a handful of large stocks. Thin order books move on small amounts.

The shares in the CMF’s case file were mostly blue chips, including Cencosud, Andina-B, Cencoshopp and CMPC. Even there, orders lasting seconds shifted prices.

The firm traded 61 different stocks between January 2021 and September 2024, the resolution says. Four of those names made up almost half the flagged cases.

The resolution lists earlier CMF penalties in similar market-conduct cases as reference points. That gives investors a rough sense of where this one sits.

The next step now rests with A&C, and the regulator’s public record will show any challenge.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is the penalty against A&C SpA?

It is 25,000 Unidades de Fomento, or about 1.02 billion Chilean pesos (US$1.08 million) at 23 September 2026 rates.

What are cotizaciones ficticias?

They are fictitious quotations: orders placed on an exchange without any intention of completing the trade. Chile’s Securities Market Law bans them.

Is the decision being appealed?

No appeal has been reported. The firm has five working days to ask the CMF to reconsider and ten to go to the Santiago appeals court.

Sources: Comisión para el Mercado Financiero, Resolution 9913 of 10 September 2026 and its published sanctions record; Diario Financiero; CNN Chile; La Tercera; BioBioChile.

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