Ownership of Chilean flag merchant vessels is limited to Chilean natural persons, Chilean majority-owned corporations with principal domicile and real effective seat in Chile, and to co-ownerships in which a majority of members are Chilean naturals residing in Chile and in which the majority of rights belong to Chileans. Cabotage services are, in principle, reserved for Chilean flag vessels. Foreign vessels may be authorised to transport merchandise that weighs more than 900 tons if no Chilean vessels are available or through contracts awarded by public tender. Tugging activities performed in Chilean ports are reserved to Chilean flag vessels. Activities of stowage and dockage on Chilean ports must be carried out by Chilean majority-owned enterprises.
"Art. 4 The ships are classified into merchant and special ships and, depending on their size, into major and minor ships.
Merchant ships are those that serve transportation, whether national or international.
Special vessels are those used for specific services, tasks or purposes, with their own characteristics for the functions for which they are intended, such as tugboats, fishing boats, dredgers, etc. scientific or pleasure boats, and so on.
Major ships are those of more than fifty tons of thick register, and smaller ships, those of fifty or less tons of thick register.
[...]
Art. 11. To register a ship in Chile it is required that its owner be Chilean and that the other requirements established in this title are met.
If the ship is owned by more than one person or is owned by a legal person, the following rules must be applied:
a) If the owner of a ship is a company, it will be considered Chilean as long as it has its main domicile in Chile and its real and effective headquarters; that its president, manager and majority of directors or administrators, as the case may be, be Chilean; and that the majority of the capital stock belongs to Chilean natural or legal persons.
b) If the ship belongs to a community, it will be considered Chilean provided that the majority of the community members are Chilean, are domiciled and reside in Chile; that its administrators, where appropriate, be Chilean; and that most of the rights in the community belong to Chilean natural or legal persons.
c) For the purposes provided in the two previous letters, it will be considered that the legal persons that are members of a company that owns ships or community members in their domain, are Chilean when they meet the requirements established in the preceding letters, respectively.
Special vessels may also be registered in Chile With the exception of fishing companies, belonging to foreign natural or legal persons domiciled in the country, provided that they have the main seat of their business in Chile, or they exercise a profession or industry in the country on a permanent basis. These facts must be verified to the satisfaction of the maritime authority. The direction may, for reasons of national security, impose on these vessels special restrictive rules for their operations.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, applying the principle of international reciprocity, the maritime authority may release from the requirements of this article, under conditions of equivalence, fishing companies incorporated in Chile with majority participation of foreign capital, when in the country of origin of said capital there are registration requirements for foreign vessels and provisions for the development of fishing activities in accordance with said principle, to which natural or legal persons of Chile can be accommodated. For the purposes of determining reciprocity and equivalence, prior certification from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be required.
[...]
Art. 41. In towing tasks, or in other maneuvers in Chilean ports, only national flag tugs may be used.
However, the Directorate may authorize, in qualified cases, the use of foreign flag tugboats.
[...]
Art. 49. To be a captain it is necessary to be Chilean and possess the title of such conferred by the Director.
[...]
Art. 61. Except as provided in article 68, to be an officer of national ships it will be necessary to possess such a title and a boarding license, granted by the Director; be Chilean and be registered in the Register of Officers of Ships of the Directorate. In this category will also be included the aspiring officers who make their training trip.
[...]
Art. 65. To be a crew member of national vessels it is necessary to be Chilean, have a registration or permit issued by the Maritime Authority and be registered in the respective Registry. As proof of registration, the Maritime Authority will grant each crew member a registration booklet.
[...]
Art. 68. The professional titles and licenses granted in a foreign country will be valid to perform as an officer in national ships, when the Director so orders it by reasoned resolution.
[...]
Art. 70. Larger ships will be under the command of a captain.
Major special ships may also be commanded by a deck officer or a skipper. The respective regulations will establish the title required by the officer to send a special ship.
Art. 71. Skipper is the person of Chilean nationality who, in possession of the title of such granted by the Director, is authorized to command smaller ships and certain larger special ships. [...]" (Decree-Law no. 2222 substituting the Navigation Law (31 May 1978), last amended on 16 February 2018, Articles 4, 11, 41, 49, 61, 65, 68, 70 and 71 [google translation])
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"Article 1 .- [...]
For the purposes of applying this law, "Chilean shipping company" or "Chilean shipping company" will be understood as the natural or legal person who meets the requirements to flag a ship in Chile, in accordance with article 11 of Decree Law No. 2,222, of 1978; is engaged in the maritime transport trade and is the owner or lessee of a merchant ship or ships under Chilean registration and flag. Likewise, they will be considered "Chilean shipping company" or "Chilean shipping company", the natural or legal persons that, complying with the other requirements demanded in this article, are considered ships in accordance with the provisions of the fourth and fifth paragraphs of article 6.
[...]
Article 3.- The cabotage is reserved for Chilean vessels, with the exceptions indicated in this law. It will be understood by such the maritime, river or lake transport of cargo between points of the national territory, and between theseand naval devices installed in the territorial sea or in the exclusive economic zone.
Cabotage of passengers shall be understood as the transport maritime, river or lake of passengers, whose origin and destination are points of the national territory and between these and naval devices installed in the territorial sea or in the exclusive economic zone. Foreign passenger ships may participate in maritime cabotage between ports, as long as their transport capacity is equal to or greater than 400 passengers, they have overnight capacity on board and their function is to transport passengers for tourist purposes. The requirement that the cabotage of passengers by foreign ships must be developed only between ports will not be applicable to the calls of said ships in the Juan Fernández Archipelago and on Easter Island.
Foreign merchant ships may participate in the defined cabotage in the first paragraph, in the case of cargo volumes greater than 900 tons, after a public tender carried out by the user, summoned with due anticipation. In this case and for the sole purpose of awarding the tender, the offers with foreign merchant ships will be increased by a percentage similar to that of the general rate of the customs duty, in accordance with the procedure indicated in the Regulation.
The award of cargo shipments through the bidding process indicated in the previous paragraph, may be claimed by the Chilean shipping companies that participated in the bidding within a period of three business days, counted from the date of its award before the Commission mentioned in the following article, which must be resolved in the session immediately after the date of the claim, be it ordinary or extraordinary. After 30 days from the date of the claim without a pronouncement from the Commission, the award of the tender will be deemed approved.
Once the award has been made, and even when there is a pending claim, the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications will authorize the foreign vessel to carry out the cabotage transport of the indicated cargoes.
If the claim is accepted and the user embarks, the user must pay a fine of 1% to 25% of the value of the freight, which will be applied by the Commission indicated in article 4. In this case, the sanctions referred to in article 18 will not be applied.
In the case of cargo volumes equal to or less than 900 tons and there is no availability of ships under the Chilean flag, the Maritime Authorityima will authorize the shipment of said cargo on foreign merchant ships. Likewise, said authorization must be given in the case of exclusive passenger transport. The Regulation will determine when it will be understood that there is no availability of ships within the term that it will set for this purpose.
Without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding paragraphs, the corresponding Local Maritime Authority may exclude one or more extra merchant shipsCabotage authorities when, in their opinion, there are sufficient reasons to dispose of it. In any case, the shipowner or operator of the ship may request the reconsideration of this measure, even by telegraphic means, to the General Director of the Maritime Territory and the Merchant Marine.
Transportation of empty containers entre the points indicated in the first paragraph of this article, it may only be carried out by foreign shipowners or operators when there is identical power for Chilean shipping companies in the countries of nationality and domicile of the respective shipowner or operator of the ship.
However, if by nationality and / or domicile a foreign shipowner or operator is linked to a group of countries with a common shipping policy, it will also be necessary for Chilean shipping companies to be empowered to transport empty containers in and between the countries of the group in question.[...]" (Decree-Law no. 3059 for the Promotion of the Merchant Navy (22 December 1979), last amended on 26 February 2019, Articles 1 and 3 [google translation])
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"Article 2.- Set the following consolidated, coordinated and systematized text of Supreme Decree No. 48 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, of February 27, 1986, modified by Supreme Decree No. 60 and Supreme Decree 90 of 1999, which approves the Regulation on Port Work.
"Article 2: They can only perform as dock companies who were registered as such in the Dock Companies Registry. The maritime, customs, labor, port authorities and, in general, the administrative authorities, will not allow the performance of the docking company functions referred to in this regulation, to natural or legal persons that are not registered in this Registry. .
Article 3: The docking company shall meet the following requirements:
I.- If they are natural persons:
a) Be Chilean and have sufficient legal capacity to exercise the activity of agent by himself. These same requirements will apply to their representatives and proxies.
b) Have an established office that has with the minimum human and technical resources for the proper functioning of the docking company in each place where it has to carry out its activities.
c) Maintain own capital and constitute the real guarantees in favor of the respective Labor Inspectorate, in the form and amounts determined by article 10 or grant in favor of the respective Labor Inspectorate a guarantee of faithful compliance with their labor and social security obligations, for the amounts and in the form established in article 13.
d) Not having been convicted of a crime or simple crime that deserves an afflictive penalty.
e) Not having been eliminated from the respective Registry for any of the reasons expressed in article 8 of this regulation, unless more than five years have elapsed since the elimination.
f) Do not register more than four fines for labor and / or social security infractions in the year prior to the presentation of the application referred to in article 4.
II.- If they are legal persons or communities:
a) Be Chilean. It will be considered as such the legal person or the community that has its main domicile and its real and effective headquarters in Chile, whose administrators, president, managers or directors, as the case may be, are Chilean, and whose share capital or assets belong tomore than fifty percent to Chilean natural or legal persons. For these purposes, it will be understood that the shareholders or partners are Chilean legal persons if they are incorporated in Chile in accordance with Chilean law.
b) Have an established office that has with the minimum human and technical resources for the proper functioning of the docking company in each place where it has to carry out its activities.
c) Maintain own capital and constitute the real guarantees in favor of the respective Labor Inspectorate in the form and amounts determined by article 10 or grant in favor of the respective Labor Inspectorate a guarantee of faithful fulfillment of its labor and social security obligations, for the amounts and in the form established in article 13.
d) Appoint one or more attorneys who will act on their behalf, who must be Chilean.
e) Not having been eliminated from the respective Registry for any of the reasons expressed in article 8 of this regulation, unless more than five years have elapsed from the elimination, and
f) Do not register more than four fines for labor and / or social security infractions in the year prior to the presentation of the application referred to in article 4."[...] (Decree no. 90 setting a consolidated, coordinated and systematized text of Decree no. 48 of 1968 that approves the regulation on port work (24 January 2000), Article 2 [google translation])
Decree-Law no. 2222 substituting the Navigation Law (31 May 1978), last amended on 16 February 2018, Articles 4, 11 and 41
Decree-Law no. 3059 for the Promotion of the Merchant Navy (22 December 1979), last amended on 26 February 2019, Articles 1 and 3
Decree no. 90 setting a consolidated, coordinated and systematized text of Decree no. 48 of 1968 that approves the regulation on port work (24 January 2000), Article 2
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