A office worker in Chile has won a legal battle against his former employer after he was accidentally paid over 300 times his monthly salary.
The man, who earned around £386 a month at the time, worked for food company Dan Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile as an assistant.
However, he was left stunned in May 2022 when he noticed the company had deposited £127,000 into his bank account on payday.
The food company said the man had agreed to pay the money back at first after meeting with the HR department.
The Court of Appeals in Santiago then sent the case over to the civil court, who acquitted the worker
|GETTY
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However, a lengthy legal battle was triggered when the employee resigned from his post just three days after the talks.
The man was accused of committing theft by the company, which carries a sentence of up to 540 days in prison under Chilean law.
However, a judge in the country's capital of Santiago ruled that the man had not committed theft and it was deemed an "unauthorised collection" and therefore, not a crime the court could prosecute him for.
The Court of Appeals in Santiago then sent the case over to the civil court, who acquitted the worker without requiring him to pay back the money.
The worker was left stunned in May 2022 when he noticed the company had deposited £127,000 into his bank account
|GETTY
Dan Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile has said the company will explore other options to retrieve the money.
In a statement to Chilean outlet Diario Financiero, the food company said: "We will take all possible legal steps, particularly an application for annulment, to have the ruling reviewed."
In Britain, numerous tax-payer funded organisations have been hit with cases of salary overpayment to their staff members.
A London NHS trust was found to have overpaid its workers almost £1million across three years in 2013.
LEGAL BATTLES - READ MORE:
In just one case uncovered, one doctor working for the Barts and the London NHS Trust found that they had been paying a doctor £4,000 each month for on-call duties she was not carrying out.
The trust released an audit report shortly afterwards revealed that a debt-collecting agency had been employed by the public body in an attempt to recover the funds.
In 2022, a nurse was accidentally paid an additional £14,000 by her employer while she was on maternity leave.
The enormous overpayment was caused by a system error between the payroll department and HR.
Barts and the London NHS Trust found that they had been paying a doctor £4,000 each month
| GETTYIn Germany, a former teacher continued to receive her full £48,000 annual salary for 16 years, despite not teaching a single lesson in that time.
The biology teacher at a vocational school near the city of Duisburg left her workplace in 2009 due to illness and mental health issues.
However, after a scheduled review by a doctor never occurred, her leave was automatically extended.
She pocketed her full salary for almost two decades until an audit carried out by the school in 2024 discovered the error.
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