Contracts that hold up where they have to.
A good agreement is not the one that reads well in head office. It is the one that still works the day it has to be enforced, in the country where the work actually happens. We draft and review commercial agreements for Chile, and we adapt the ones you already use.
What we draft and review.
Most of it is ordinary commercial paper. What makes it worth doing here rather than at head office is that it is written against the law that will actually govern it.
Commercial and service agreements
Master services agreements, statements of work, software and subscription terms, and the ordinary contracts an operating business signs week to week.
Supply, distribution and resale
Supplier terms, distribution and reseller arrangements, and the exclusivity, territory and termination provisions that decide what happens when the relationship ends.
Intra-group agreements
The service, licence and cost-sharing agreements between your Chilean company and the rest of the group — the documents that make the operating model real rather than notional.
Leases and property
Office and warehouse leases reviewed before signature, including the clauses on term, adjustment, guarantees and early exit that are easy to accept and expensive to live with.
Confidentiality and IP
Non-disclosure agreements, and assignment of intellectual property so the chain runs cleanly from whoever created the work to the entity that should hold the rights.
Review of what you already signed
A read of the agreements already in force, with the exposure flagged in plain language and ranked — so you can fix what matters and leave the rest alone.
Three decisions that outrank the drafting.
A contract for Chile is usually a sound template plus three decisions. In our experience the template is rarely what causes the problem.
Governing law and forum
The instinct is to keep your own law and your own courts. For an agreement performed in Chile with a Chilean counterparty, that can be the weakest clause in the document: a foreign court judgment generally has to be recognised by the Chilean courts before anyone can enforce it here, which adds a step and time. Arbitration often travels better, since Chile is a party to the New York Convention on the recognition of foreign arbitral awards.
Language
English is workable between sophisticated parties. But anything that has to be registered, filed or put before a Chilean court or authority will need Spanish, and employment documents are in Spanish from the start. A bilingual contract with a clause stating which version governs costs almost nothing now and settles an argument later.
Currency and indexation
Chile indexes long-term obligations to the UF rather than to the nominal peso, which is why a multi-year lease or service contract priced in plain pesos quietly loses value. Pricing in dollars moves the exchange risk rather than removing it. Which unit the contract uses is a commercial decision with legal consequences.
The expensive contracts are the ones that were never adapted.
A head-office template signed with a Chilean counterparty usually works until the day it has to be enforced. Then the forum clause, the notice provisions and the termination mechanics turn out to have been written for a different legal system, and the question stops being commercial and becomes procedural.
Adapting a template is a short, fixed-fee piece of work. Arguing about a clause that does not fit is neither.
General information, not legal advice for a specific case.Four ways this usually runs.
Some clients send one contract. Others want the set their Chilean operation will keep reusing. Both are normal, and the second is usually cheaper per document.
Drafted from scratch
A contract written for the transaction and for Chilean law, from a brief call about what the deal actually is rather than from a form.
Review and markup
The counterparty’s draft read and marked up, with the points that matter separated from the points that merely look unfamiliar — and a view on which ones are worth spending negotiating capital on.
Negotiation support
Sitting behind your team while the terms are settled, in Spanish where the conversation happens in Spanish, so nothing is conceded because of a translation.
A contract set for the operation
The handful of agreements your Chilean company will sign repeatedly, drafted once as a set your own team can reuse without calling a lawyer for each one.
A fixed fee per document, agreed before we start.
Contract work is quoted per document or per set, in writing, once we have seen what is involved. A review with a short memo is priced separately from a full drafting job, and a contract set for the operation is quoted as a package. The first conversation costs nothing.
What in-house counsel ask.
Can we just use our standard template?
Often as a starting point, yes. The body of a well-drafted commercial agreement travels reasonably well. What does not travel is the procedural furniture — forum, notices, service of process, termination mechanics, remedies — because those are written against a specific legal system. Adapting those provisions is usually a short piece of work, and it is the part worth paying for.
Does the contract have to be in Spanish?
Not as a general rule for commercial agreements between businesses. But anything that has to be registered, filed or produced before a Chilean court or public authority will need Spanish, and employment documentation is in Spanish from the outset. For anything with a real prospect of being enforced here, a bilingual version with a governing-language clause is the practical answer.
Can we choose our own law and our own courts?
Parties to an international commercial contract have wide freedom to choose the governing law. The harder question is enforcement: a judgment from a foreign court generally has to be recognised by the Chilean courts before it can be enforced against assets here, which takes time. Where the counterparty and the assets are Chilean, arbitration is often the more practical choice.
Do contracts need to be notarised?
Most commercial contracts are valid in private writing and do not require a notary. Certain acts do — real property, some corporate matters, and powers of attorney granted for particular purposes — and getting that wrong is one of the few drafting errors that can affect validity rather than just convenience. We flag it when it applies.
How quickly can you turn something around?
A review with a short memo is typically a few business days. A contract drafted from scratch depends on how settled the commercial terms are — if the deal is agreed, days rather than weeks. Urgent work is possible and we will say so before you plan around it.
Do you work alongside our existing counsel?
Regularly. On cross-border matters the usual arrangement is that your own counsel owns the deal and we own the Chilean law questions, which is a cleaner division than either side pretending to cover both.
Send us the contract, or tell us what you are signing.
A short call is usually enough to tell you whether the document needs adapting, what it would cost, and how quickly we can turn it around. The first conversation is free, and you will hear back within one business day.
Thank you for your response. ✨
This page is general information about Chilean law and not legal advice for a specific matter. Sending this form does not create an attorney–client relationship.
