Advisor - Neil Poulton	29.10.2007 - 12:05
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a landmark in law. For the first time, companies and organisations can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care. The Act, which will come into force on 6 April 2008, clarifies the criminal liabilities of companies including large organisations where serious failures in the management of health and safety result in a fatality. The Ministry of Justice leads on the Act and more information is available on its Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 webpage. HSE welcomes and supports the Act. Although the new offence is not part of health and safety law, it will introduce an important new element in the corporate management of health and safety. Prosecutions will be of the corporate body and not individuals, but the liability of directors, board members or other individuals under health and safety law or general criminal law, will be unaffected. And the corporate body itself and individuals can still be prosecuted for separate health and safety offences. The Act also largely removes the Crown immunity that applies to the existing common law corporate manslaughter offence. This is welcome, and consistent with Government and HSC policy to secure the eventual removal of Crown immunity for health and safety offences. The Act provides a number of specific exemptions that cover public policy decisions and the exercise of core public functions.
advisor - neil poulton	14.09.2007 - 10:38
Last year, there were 674,422 personal injury claims in England and Wales and approximately two-thirds of them were under £2500 in value.
Advisor - Neil Poulton	27.08.2007 - 10:42
Asda and B&Q get combined fines and costs of £327,500! For failing to protect their staff from workplace transport.
Advisor - Neil Poulton	27.08.2007 - 10:36
TWO DIRECTORS GO TO JAIL! On July 5th two directors where sentenced to 9 and 12 months respectively for health and safety failings resulting in the death of a 28 year old father of 3 at a concrete company. The Company were also fined £75000 plus £89000 in costs. Safety Champions will review your business from only £300/day most businesses covered in 1-3 days.
Advisor - Neil poulton	27.08.2007 - 10:29
Well what a busy period! The Corporate manslaughter bill is now passed and will become law in April 2008, for further info give me a call!
CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER BILL TO BECOME LAW IN 2007 - ulton	25.01.2007 - 14:05
Corporate Killing The new legislation is likely to introduce a new offence of corporate killing. The offence will be capable of commission not just by companies but by "undertakings". An undertaking is "any trade or business or other activity providing employment", a definition found in the Local Employment Act 1960. The law will effectively apply to all organisations that employ people and this will include partnerships, clubs, trade unions, schools and other educational institutions, local authorities, hospital trusts and individuals who employ others in small businesses. Its applicability will be very wide. An undertaking will be guilty of corporate killing if: • the conduct of the undertaking causes death • the undertaking’s conduct in causing death falls far below what could reasonably be expected. A death will be regarded as having been caused by the undertaking if it is caused by a "management failure", ie the way the undertaking is managed or organised fails to ensure the health and safety of persons employed by it or affected by its activities. The management failure will be regarded as the cause of the death even if the immediate cause is the act or omission of an individual. It is not necessary for the risk to be obvious or that the undertaking did not appreciate the risk. The individuals within the company may still be liable to prosecution under the general laws of manslaughter. Who Will Prosecute? The Government suggests that the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the health and safety enforcing authority, eg the Health and Safety Executive should be able to investigate and prosecute. Currently, only the police and the Crown Prosecution Service can carry out this role. Penalties for Corporate Killing The Government proposes that fines and orders to take remedial action will be the penalties for corporate killing. The court’s power to order the undertaking to take remedial action would be in addition to the Health and Safety Executive’s power to issue enforcement notices. The prosecuting agency would be responsible for drawing up the remedial order in consultation with the relevant enforcement authority, such as the Health and Safety Executive. On an application for a remedial order, both the prosecuting agency and the defence would have the opportunity to make representations or call evidence regarding the proposed order. The enforcement authority will be responsible for checking compliance and referring matters back to the court if necessary. The maximum penalty for reckless killing looks likely to be life imprisonment and the maximum penalty for killing by gross carelessness looks likely to be 10 years’ imprisonment. Evasion of Liability Most prosecutions for the new offence are likely to be against companies, which gives rise to the real risk that corporate structures could be exploited to try to evade liability, eg by establishing financially weak subsidiary companies to carry out risky activities or by dissolution or insolvency of a guilty company. The Government is anxious that enforcement action should be a real deterrent and proposes draconian steps to prevent evasion. The new law will apply to foreign companies doing business in the UK so that it will not be possible for a company incorporated overseas but carrying out activities here to escape prosecution. The Government recognises that there may be practical problems in taking enforcement action against such companies. The Government proposes that criminal proceedings should be brought against parent companies or other companies within a group if their management failings contributed to the death. This will prevent group structures from being used for evasion, eg for establishing subsidiary companies to carry out risky business or by establishing financially weak subsidiary companies with insufficient assets to pay any fine. The Government is also concerned that criminal liability might be evaded by dissolving a company or making it insolvent before the prosecution takes place. It suggests that companies could be subject to legal proceedings to freeze their property and assets and that such proceedings could be taken before a prosecution commences, to prevent assets being transferred or dissipated. Alternatively, the Government suggests allowing the prosecution to proceed despite a company’s insolvency. The Individual The Government’s proposals do not affect an individual’s liability to be charged with manslaughter if sufficient evidence exists. However, the proposals also suggest that additional criminal sanctions should be imposed on individuals where the undertaking is liable. This would be an additional deterrence and would help prevent culpable individuals from behaving similarly in future. The Government proposes that an individual should be disqualified from acting in any management role if he or she has some influence on or responsibility for the relevant management failure that falls below what could reasonably be expected and which causes the death. The ground for the disqualification would be contributing to the management failure that caused the death. In the most serious cases the disqualification might be unlimited but it would normally be for a limited period of time. If an individual contravened a disqualification order the penalty would be an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment. A management role would include not only a company directorship but the management of any undertaking, eg a partnership. The potential impact of this proposed penalty on company officers or those managing undertakings is draconian. They would in effect lose their livelihoods. The Government also suggests the introduction of a new criminal offence of substantially contributing to the relevant undertaking’s offence. This would be a fallback prosecution where it is not possible to secure a manslaughter conviction. The Government is not certain what sanctions would apply and is consulting further. Territorial Extent With one or two exceptions, English criminal law applies only to England and Wales so that the courts do not have jurisdiction over criminal acts committed outside England and Wales. One of the exceptions to this rule is that the courts have jurisdiction over homicide offences, which include manslaughter, committed abroad. However, the new corporate manslaughter law will apply only to offences of corporate killing committed in England or Wales and if a corporate killing by an English or Welsh company takes place overseas it will be a matter for the courts of the particular country concerned. This means that the law of manslaughter as applying to individuals and as applying to companies will be different in its territorial application. Crown Immunity Government bodies can claim immunity from prosecution on the basis that they act as a servant or agent of the Crown. This may apply to the proposed new corporate killing offence, so that it would be impossible to prosecute the Government, or part of it, for manslaughter. However, the Government does believe that it should be accountable if it causes death by a management failure. It proposes, therefore, that it should be subject to a declaration of non-compliance with statutory requirements that would require immediate action to remedy the particular management failure. Private Prosecutions for Corporate Manslaughter The Government proposes that private prosecutions for corporate manslaughter brought by private individuals and not by the Crown Prosecution Service or the police should be capable of commencement without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. At the moment, the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required. This means that undertakings may face prosecutions started by, for example, aggrieved relatives of the deceased. Reckless or Grossly Careless Transmission of a Disease There is increasing pressure generally on companies and employers to increase the safety of the workforce in the wake of the string of public diseases in recent years, where complacency and neglect have been seen to be contributory factors to fatalities. The Government proposes an additional new manslaughter regime to deal with the reckless or grossly careless transmission of a disease that causes death. If a company’s management failure leads to the transmission of a fatal disease, the company may be guilty of corporate manslaughter. Preparing for the New Legislation The draft bill and final legislation are likely to differ slightly from the Government’s proposals published in the year 2000. However, it is likely that the legislation will significantly widen the exposure of a range of organisations and their management in the event of an unlawful killing. Undertakings, and not just companies, should take steps to prepare for the new legislation. These steps should include the following. • Review existing systems, policies and organisational arrangements so that responsibilities for health and safety are clear, are understood by everybody in the company and are implemented. This should be an ongoing process. • Ensure that health and safety policies are properly recorded and accessible. Policies should be properly disseminated so that everyone understands what the policies are, who is responsible for what and where to find the necessary information. • Consider arranging an external health and safety audit by specialist advisors.
Claims ! who gains? - Neil Poulton	03.11.2006 - 08:46
Last year, there were 674,422 personal injury claims in England and Wales and approximately two-thirds of them were under £2500 in value.
Company fined £1900 for the sake of £25 - Neil Poulton	30.10.2006 - 20:49
A company was fined after a man fell 2.5 metres off a ladder breaking his heel bone when for the sake of a £25 bit of pipe he did not need to go up the ladder ever again. A typical example of people not thinking about why they are putting others at risk.

» Older News «