Who is liable if an AI agent causes harm in Argentina?

Short answer, for Argentina: if an AI agent causes harm today, the company answers, and it answers strictly — article 1757 of the Civil and Commercial Code makes whoever carries out a risky activity or controls a thing liable without the victim having to prove fault, and it says expressly that 'compliance with prevention techniques' is no defense. Under the bill for a new General Companies Law (file PE-193/26) the architecture is the same with two rules written for AI: the automated company 'is liable with its assets towards third parties for the damage caused by its autonomous algorithmic systems or artificial-intelligence agents' (art. 14), and the directors who use AI keep 'the duty of configuration and supervision of the system and its results' (art. 102), their own liability being 'in no case strict' (art. 101).

Everything else is detail on those two rules. Directors answer with their own assets only for their own fault (arts. 59 and 274 of Law 19,550), and shareholders only when the company was a mere instrument to break the law (art. 54). Since 19 August 2026 the ruling bloc also promises an identified human responsible on the administration body, which as of 10 September 2026 is still not in the filed text and the bill is in Senate committee with no committee report. Wyoming's DAO LLC answers a different question: it shields the owners and is silent about who supervises the algorithm. All of this is Argentine law — no EU or US rule decides who pays for the harm here, which is why every article below is quoted from Argentine sources and from the file itself, and why an answer written for another jurisdiction will not tell you who is liable in Argentina.

The law in force today (September 2026): four layers of liability

No Argentine rule was written for AI agents. What applies is the general system of the Civil and Commercial Code (Law 26,994, in force since 1 August 2015) and the General Companies Law 19,550. We checked every article below against the consolidated text on Infoleg (Civil and Commercial Code) and Infoleg (Law 19,550) on 10 Sep 2026; quotations are our translation.

Layer 1 — the company: strict liability for the risk it creates

Two procedural rules complete the picture. Under art. 1734 whoever alleges a ground of liability or a defense must prove it, but art. 1735 lets the judge shift the burden of proving fault or due diligence to 'the party in the better position to provide it' — in an AI dispute, the party holding the logs. And under art. 1736 the burden of proving an external cause (the victim's own act, a fortuitous event or a third party's act, arts. 1729 to 1731) falls on whoever invokes it. Since the company cannot escape by proving diligence, its only exits are those external causes — and a third party's act (say, a vendor's) only counts if it 'has the characteristics of a fortuitous event' (art. 1731).

Layer 2 — consumers: joint and several liability along the chain

If the victim is a consumer, art. 40 of Law 24,240 (added by Law 24,999, 1998; Infoleg) applies: 'If the damage to the consumer results from the defect or risk of the thing or of the provision of the service, the producer, the manufacturer, the importer, the distributor, the supplier, the seller and whoever has put their brand on the thing or service shall be liable. […] Liability is joint and several, without prejudice to the recovery actions that may apply. Only whoever proves that the cause of the damage was foreign to them shall be released, totally or partially.' The AI vendor, the company deploying the agent and the brand on the storefront are all in that chain. This is Argentina's functional equivalent of a product-liability regime, and it already covers services.

Layer 3 — directors and managers: liability for their own fault

• Art. 59, Law 19,550: 'The directors and representatives of the company must act with loyalty and with the diligence of a good businessperson. Those who fail in their obligations are liable, unlimitedly and jointly and severally, for the damages resulting from their action or omission.'
• Art. 274, Law 19,550 (S.A.): directors 'are liable unlimitedly and jointly and severally towards the company, the shareholders and third parties for the poor performance of their office, under the standard of article 59, as well as for the violation of the law, the bylaws or the regulations and for any other damage caused by wilful misconduct, abuse of powers or gross negligence'. Its second paragraph matters for AI governance: liability is assessed 'according to individual conduct when functions have been assigned personally in accordance with the bylaws, the regulations or a shareholders' resolution', provided the assignment is registered with the Public Registry. A director exempts themself by recording a written protest and notifying the statutory auditor.
• Art. 157, Law 19,550 (S.R.L.): managers 'have the same rights, obligations, prohibitions and incompatibilities as the directors of a corporation'.
• Art. 52, Law 27,349 (S.A.S.): 'the duties, obligations and liabilities provided by article 157 of the General Companies Law' apply to the administrators and legal representatives of a simplified company (Infoleg).

The practical consequence: a director is not liable because the agent failed; they are liable if a diligent businessperson would have selected, configured or watched it differently. That is a fault standard, and it is what documentation defends.

Layer 4 — shareholders: limited liability, with one exception

Shareholders of an S.A., quota-holders of an S.R.L. and shareholders of an S.A.S. answer only up to their contribution. The exception is art. 54, third paragraph, Law 19,550: when the company's conduct 'conceals the pursuit of extra-corporate purposes, constitutes a mere resource to violate the law, public policy or good faith, or to frustrate the rights of third parties', it is attributed directly to the shareholders or controllers who made it possible, 'who shall be jointly, severally and unlimitedly liable'. An undercapitalized shell that lets an agent loose is the textbook case a plaintiff would argue.

What bill PE-193/26 proposes: the text filed with the Senate

The executive's Message No. 187/2026 and the bill were signed on 29 May 2026 and stamped by the Senate's Mesa de Entradas on 1 June 2026 as file PE-193/26. We obtained the scanned original (107 folios) from the Senate's file page on 10 Sep 2026; the three articles that decide liability for the automated company read as follows (our translation from folios 21, 52 and 53).

Article 14 — Automation. 'A company of any of the types provided in this law that carries out its corporate purpose through autonomous algorithmic systems or artificial-intelligence agents, without requiring employees in a dependent relationship or human resources for its ordinary operation, shall be considered an Automated Company. The declaration of automation must be stated expressly in the bylaws. The corporate name must include the expression "Automatizada". Liability. The automated company is liable with its assets towards third parties for the damage caused by its autonomous algorithmic systems or artificial-intelligence agents.'

Article 101 — Liability (of directors, all company types). 'Directors or representatives who, with negligence or wilful misconduct, breach their obligations or violate the law, the bylaws or corporate decisions, are liable for the damage that has adequate causation with their action or omission. Their obligation is one of means and their liability is in no case strict, nor are they presumed guarantors of the company's obligations. Liability shall be attributed according to the individual conduct of each director or representative in the harmful event, weighing especially whether the bylaws, the regulations or the decision of the governing body assigned specific functions. […] Protection of business discretion. A director who acts in good faith, without favoring interests other than the company's, nor acting in a personal interest in the matter decided, with sufficient information and following an adequate decision-making procedure, does not incur liability for damage caused by strategic and business decisions subject to business discretion.'

Article 102 — Artificial-intelligence systems in management. 'The administration body may use artificial-intelligence systems or algorithms for the performance of operational functions or the adoption of decisions. Their use does not exclude or limit the liability of the directors nor exempts them from the duty of configuration and supervision of the system and its results.'

Three things follow from the literal text. First, the company's liability is written as a patrimonial guarantee towards third parties ('with its assets'), consistent with today's art. 1757 rather than replacing it — the bill's repeal clause (art. 270, folio 105) covers Law 19,550, Law 22,169 and articles 33 to 59, 61 and 62 of Law 27,349, and does not name the Civil and Commercial Code, whose rules on damages keep applying. Second, directors' liability becomes expressly fault-based and protected by a business-judgment rule, which the Message (folio 10) describes as abandoning 'interpretations that tend to configure strict or automatic liability for the mere adverse result of a business decision'. Third, the duties the bill names for AI are two — configuration and supervision 'of the system and its results'. The four-verb formula that circulates in commentary — select, configure, supervise and audit, plus emergency-stop mechanisms — is the reading of the duty of diligence proposed by ICBT, not the statutory wording; since 21 September 2026 every page on this site quotes the article and attributes those four verbs to ICBT.

The bill answers the same question for the other new figure. Article 262 — Liability regime (DAO chapter, folio 103): 'The Decentralized Autonomous Operating Company (DAO) is liable with its assets for the obligations and damage caused in the course of its activity, including those executed automatically by the protocol.' The legal representative answers under the general regime, and the promoter 'is liable unlimitedly and jointly and severally for the obligations contracted for the incorporation and registration of the company' until registration. Code executing on its own is expressly the company's act — the opposite of a shield.

The human responsible: announced, not yet written

On 19 August 2026, Senate ruling-bloc leader Patricia Bullrich announced that automated companies and DAOs must have at least one responsible person — an individual, or a legal entity 'with sufficient competence' — on the administration body, to 'make the liability of automated companies far more solid, with human responsible persons' (La Nación, 19 Aug 2026). The filed text has no such clause: the requirement would enter through the committee report, which does not exist as of 10 Sep 2026. Until it does, the human responsible is a documented political commitment, not a rule. The organizations that asked for public hearings on 31 August object that it does not close what they call a criminal-liability gap when an autonomous system commits an offense (see the tracker).

Wyoming's DAO LLC answers a different question

The comparison people ask for is with Wyoming's Decentralized Autonomous Organization Supplement (W.S. 17-31-101 to 17-31-116, 2021, amended 2022), checked against the Title 17 compilation of the Wyoming Legislature on 10 Sep 2026 (the full section-by-section profile, including formation, the mandatory notice and dissolution, is in our Wyoming DAO LLC guide):

• The DAO is an LLC. W.S. 17-31-104(a): 'A decentralized autonomous organization is a limited liability company whose articles of organization contain a statement that the company is a decentralized autonomous organization'. The Wyoming LLC Act applies to it (17-31-103).
• Members are shielded. W.S. 17-29-304(a): the debts, obligations or other liabilities of an LLC, 'whether arising in contract, tort or otherwise', 'are solely the debts, obligations or other liabilities of the company' and 'do not become the debts, obligations or other liabilities of a member or manager solely by reason of the member acting as a member or manager acting as a manager'. A court may pierce only on fraud, inadequate capitalization, failure to observe formalities or intermingling of assets (17-29-304(c)).
• The smart contract is code, not a person. W.S. 17-31-102(a)(ix) defines it as 'an automated transaction […] or code, script or programming language relying on a blockchain'. Management 'shall be vested in its members or the members and any applicable smart contracts' (17-31-109), and the articles must state 'to what extent the management will be conducted algorithmically' (17-31-104(e)).
• No fiduciary duties by default. W.S. 17-31-110: 'no member of a decentralized autonomous organization shall have any fiduciary duty to the organization or any member except […] the implied contractual covenant of good faith and fair dealing', unless the articles or operating agreement provide otherwise. The mandatory notice in the articles warns that the statute 'may define, reduce or eliminate fiduciary duties' (17-31-104(c)).

So the two regimes are not alternatives. Wyoming regulates who owns and governs: it wraps a protocol in an LLC, shields the members and lets code manage without anyone owing a duty of care. Argentina's bill regulates who operates and who supervises: it keeps the company liable towards third parties and pins a personal duty of configuration and supervision on named directors. A Wyoming DAO LLC has no statutory equivalent of art. 102, and the Argentine bill has no equivalent of 17-31-110's waiver of duties. The six-vehicle table is in our comparison, and the Argentine DAO chapter in the DAO guide.

What to do today if AI agents already run part of your S.A.S. or S.R.L.

None of this needs the bill. Each item maps to a rule in force and to a duty the bill will most likely name.

1. Name the accountable director and register the assignment. Art. 274, second paragraph, lets liability be assessed individually when functions are assigned personally in the bylaws, regulations or a shareholders' resolution and the assignment is registered. A board minute that makes one director responsible for the agents, filed with the registry, is the closest thing today to the bill's human responsible — and it protects the other directors.
2. Keep an inventory of agents and an immutable decision log. Which model, which version, which permissions, which prompts, what it did and when. Under art. 1735 a judge may shift the burden of proving diligence to the party 'in the better position' to prove it; without logs you are that party and you cannot. Under the bill it is how you evidence 'supervision of the system and its results' (art. 102).
3. Write down the emergency stop and the incident protocol. Who can halt an agent, how fast, and what happens to pending actions. Art. 1710(c) — 'not aggravate the damage, if it has already occurred' — turns a missing kill switch into a breach of its own.
4. Allocate risk in the vendor contract, and know its limit. Indemnities, uptime and data commitments recover money from the provider after the fact. They do not exempt you towards the victim: a third party's act only frees you if it has the characteristics of a fortuitous event (art. 1731), and towards consumers the whole chain is jointly and severally liable (art. 40, Law 24,240).
5. Disclose the automation to counterparties. Tell customers and suppliers that an automated system contracts, prices or answers on the company's behalf, and give them a human channel. The bill will require it in the name and bylaws (art. 14); today it narrows what counts as 'unjustified' damage and what the counterparty could foresee (art. 1726).
6. Check your insurance wording. General liability and D&O policies were not drafted with autonomous agents in mind; ask the insurer in writing whether damage caused by automated decision-making is covered or excluded, and keep the answer. We have no market data on pricing for this risk in Argentina as of September 2026; treat any figure you are quoted as that insurer's, not the market's.
7. Capitalize the company for the risk it runs. The one way shareholders lose their shield is art. 54: a company used as a 'mere resource' to frustrate third parties' rights. An agent that moves real money inside a shell with no assets is the fact pattern a plaintiff will plead — under Argentine law and, for what it is worth, under Wyoming's 17-29-304(c) too.

Where the bill stands

Senate General Legislation Committee, no committee vote as of 10 Sep 2026; the latest milestone is the request for public hearings by more than 30 organizations (31 Aug 2026). Articles 14, 101 and 102 can still change in the committee report — the human responsible would be the first change. The full timeline, with sources, is in the tracker; the rest of the figure, in the guide.

Sources, all consulted 10 Sep 2026: Civil and Commercial Code (Law 26,994), arts. 1710, 1721-1722, 1726, 1729-1731, 1734-1736, 1749, 1753, 1757-1758, consolidated text on Infoleg; General Companies Law 19,550 (t.o. 1984), arts. 54, 59, 157, 274, Infoleg; Law 27,349, art. 52, Infoleg; Law 24,240, art. 40, Infoleg; bill PE-193/26, Message 187/2026, scanned original from the Senate (folios 10, 21, 52-53, 103, 105); Wyoming Statutes Title 17, chapters 29 and 31, Wyoming Legislature; La Nación, 19 Aug 2026 (human responsible); ICBT (four-duty reading). All quotations from Argentine sources are our translation. General information, not legal advice: the enacted text may differ from the bill, and how courts apply arts. 1757-1758 to AI agents has not been settled by case law we could verify. Consult licensed counsel for your case.