Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act came into force on 6 April 2008, and created the new statutory offence in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland of “corporate manslaughter”, and in Scotland of “corporate homicide”.
The new Act is about corporate responsibility and liability, and is not concerned with increasing the liability of individuals,
who can already be held to account through existing health and safety legislation and the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter.
The Act attempts to create a more effective method for prosecuting companies, with the focus being on the worst cases of management failure
which have resulted in death.
There are no new duties or obligations under the Act but it is linked to existing health and safety requirements. A company will be guilty
of the new offence if the way in which its activities are organised by the senior management, amount to a gross breach of duty of care it owes
to its employees, the public or other individuals and those failings caused the person’s death. Senior management is defined in the Act as
those persons who play a significant role in the decision-making process about how the company's activities are managed and organised.
A company will face prosecution if it is found to have caused the death due to its corporate health and safety failings.
The current law links a company's guilt to the gross negligence of an individual who is said to be the embodiment of the company.
It has proved very difficult to prosecute large organisations, and the only successful prosecutions have been against small companies where
the director and company are essentially one and the same.
The new Act seeks to address this difficulty by focusing on the way in which a company's activities are managed or organised, and it is not
reliant on one individual being found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. The courts will now be able to consider the wider corporate
picture, looking collectively at the actions, or more appropriately the failings, of the company's senior management.
It is hoped that the effect of a possible conviction, and resulting penalties, will be a sufficient incentive for companies which consistently
fail to meet proper standards to improve and provide their employees with safer working environments.
Penalties include an unlimited fine, remedial orders and publicity orders. A remedial order will require an organisation to take steps to
remedy any management failure which led to death. The court can impose an order publicising the fact the company has been convicted of the
offence, providing details, the amount of any fine imposed and the terms of any remedial order made.
In order to assist companies in understanding and meeting their responsibilities under the new Act, Business Safety Systems offers a full
day or half day training course in ‘Directors Responsibilities for Health and Safety’.
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