A Chilean office worker has won a dramatic legal battle after his company mistakenly paid him a salary more than 300 times his normal monthly wage—and later tried to recover the money.
The man, who worked as an assistant at Dan Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile, normally earned around 500,000 pesos ($386) each month. But in May 2022, an accounting blunder saw 165 million pesos ($127,000) mistakenly deposited into his bank account.
According to the company, the worker initially agreed in a meeting with HR to return the money. However, just three days later, he resigned from his job, sparking a three-year-long legal battle.
The firm accused him of theft, a charge that carried a possible fine and up to 540 days in jail. But a court in Santiago dismissed the case, ruling that the incident amounted to “unauthorised collection,” which is not classified as a crime.
The ruling shocked many in Chile’s business community. Despite the dismissal, the company says it will continue pushing to recover the funds.
“We will take all possible legal steps, particularly an application for annulment, to have the ruling reviewed,” the firm said in a statement to Diario Financiero.
For now, the unnamed worker walks free, leaving both his former employer and Chileans stunned at how the case played out.
i will return it o