On 20 July 2006 the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill ("the Bill") was introduced into Parliament.
It had previously been anticipated that separate provisions would be introduced in each of England and Wales and Scotland. The Bill now covers both.
The Bill creates a new offence of Corporate Manslaughter (to be called Corporate Homicide in Scotland) which applies to companies, other incorporated bodies, certain government departments and similar bodies and police forces.
The main provisions of the Bill are as follows:-
- The offence will be committed where:
- an organisation owes a duty to take reasonable care for a person’s safety
- the way in which activities of the organisation have been managed or organised by senior managers amounts to a gross breach of this duty and
- this causes death.
- In considering whether there has been a gross breach of duty, a jury must consider whether the organisation concerned failed to comply with any health and safety legislation that relates to the alleged breach and, if so, how serious that failure was and how much of a risk of death it posed. A jury may also consider whether there were attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices within the organisation that were likely to have encouraged such a failure or to have induced tolerance of it and may have regard to any health and safety guidance that relates to the alleged breach.
- The sanction for committing the offence is an unlimited fine. There is also provision for the Court to make remedial orders whereby an organisation can be ordered to take specified steps to remedy any breach resulting in the committing of the offence and any matter that appears to the courts to have resulted from that breach
- Decisions of public policy taken by public authorities are excluded from the ambit of the offence as are certain military, policing, emergency services and child protection and probation functions.
- The new offence applies only to organisations and does not apply to individuals. This does not affect an individual’s potential liability for any other offences such as health and safety offences.
The regulatory burden for industry or the public sector arising from the creation of this new offence is expected to be small. The Government acknowledges that it is possible that organisations may seek legal advice and undertake additional training in preparation for the Bill and estimates these costs across industry as being around £12m. It estimates that there will be an additional ten to thirteen cases of corporate manslaughter/homicide a year following implementation of the offence. The Government considers that any additional costs need to be considered in light of any savings as a result of fewer workplace injuries and accidents. It hopes that the effect of the Bill will be to encourage organisations which do not currently comply with health and safety laws to do so. It hopes that the new offence will be an added incentive to organisations with very poor safety standards to improve. It is questionable whether the existing health and safety legislation does not or should not already fulfil these aims.
Disclaimer
The material contained in this e-update is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.
© MacRoberts 2006