According to Emol, the slide in Fondo E, the most conservative of the pension system's multifunds, now pits four fronts against each other: the regulator, the seven AFPs (administradoras de fondos de pensiones, Chile's private pension fund managers), the Government and the Congress. The fund lost 10.39% in real terms between January and September, and the controversy has dragged on for more than a week.
The turning point came when the Superintendencia de Pensiones (Chile's pensions regulator) opened sanction proceedings against all the fund managers. The agency wants to determine whether they breached their duties of loyalty and diligence when making their investment decisions.
At the center are financial derivatives. According to the outlet, the AFPs used swap contracts tied to US interest rates. The losses cast doubt both on the fund managers and on those responsible for supervising them.
Joaquín Cortez currently heads the Superintendencia. He is a business engineer, chaired the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF, Chile's financial market regulator) from 2018 to 2022 and previously ran AFP Provida. President José Antonio Kast appointed him in March 2026. According to La Tercera, Cortez said: "we have been on top of the issue". Asked about the AFPs' responsibility, he replied: "Ask them, look at the results".
The administrative investigation is in the hands of the agency's prosecutor, Mario Valderrama, a lawyer who joined in 2019 through a Alta Dirección Pública (Chile's senior civil service selection system) competition. The process includes the filing of charges, responses to the charges, an evidentiary period and a final ruling. Sanctions range from a censure to fines of 15,000 UF (Unidad de Fomento, an inflation-indexed Chilean unit of account), or even revocation of the license to operate. Valderrama told Ex-Ante that the AFPs "must behave as if the money they manage were their own".
Former superintendent Osvaldo Macías is also under scrutiny. He led the agency from 2016 until March 2026, under the governments of Michelle Bachelet, Sebastián Piñera and Gabriel Boric. He is being questioned over the pace at which new restrictions moved forward. Macías maintains that the fund managers received repeated warnings and rejected any self-criticism: "I'm not making any mea culpa", he said.
The firms under investigation are Capital, Cuprum, Habitat, Modelo, PlanVital, ProVida and Uno. Six belong to the Asociación de AFP (the industry association); Uno is not a member. Opening the proceedings does not mean any violations have been proven. Their general managers include Renzo Vercelli (Capital), Martín Mujica (Cuprum), Max Sichel (Habitat), Andrés Flisfisch (Modelo), José Joaquín Prat (PlanVital) and Santiago Donoso (ProVida). The source does not detail each one's individual position.
On the political front, the Executive defends the regulatory measures it has adopted since March and asks for patience until the investigation concludes. Various sectors, however, are demanding accountability and proposing compensation for members.
The dispute has also reached the courts. Members are filing recursos de protección (constitutional rights petitions). On the criminal side, two lawmakers from the Partido Socialista, Senator Daniela Cicardini and Deputy Daniel Manouchehri, filed a complaint over the case with the Ministerio Público (Chile's public prosecutor's office). The complaint was referred to the Fiscalía Regional Metropolitana Norte (the northern Santiago metropolitan regional prosecutor's office), which must determine whether a crime was committed.
