In Ecuador, corporate criminal liability was established with the implementation of the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code (COIP) starting in 2014. Since then, a regulatory framework has been in place allowing private legal entities—whether domestic or foreign—to be held liable for crimes committed on their behalf, for their benefit, or through their means, as long as decision-making bodies or individuals were involved.
However, the original wording did not expressly consider compliance programs as a mitigating factor in assessing such liability.
This omission was corrected with the February 2021 reform, introduced through the so-called “Anti-Corruption Law,” which amended, among others, Articles 45 and 49 of the COIP. With this amendment, Ecuadorian legislation explicitly recognized for the first time that compliance programs can serve as a mitigating circumstance for the criminal liability of legal entities—aligning the country with international trends in economic and corporate criminal law, where compliance is valued both as a preventive tool and as a factor mitigating sanctions.
Currently, the law establishes that implementing integrity systems, norms, programs, or compliance, prevention, management, or supervision policies before the commission of the crime qualifies as a mitigating factor. For larger legal entities, these mechanisms must be managed by a separate department or body; for small and medium-sized enterprises, a responsible person may be appointed. To be effective, the system must operate functionally and transversally, integrating across all organizational levels—from senior management to administrative and operational areas.
The aim of this provision is twofold: to incentivize organizations to adopt integrity models that reduce the likelihood of wrongdoing and to recognize the efforts of those who, prior to the criminal act, demonstrated due diligence through robust control structures. While the existence of a compliance program does not exempt liability, it can influence the determination of the sanction, reflecting the entity’s commitment to legality and corporate ethics.
