Corporate Manslaughter Laws Criticised
Many legal and corporate experts seem to have the opinion that there will be a dramatic increase in the number of firms successfully prosecuted for corporate manslaughter as a result of UK legislation introduced April this year.
However, as reported in this weeks People Bulletin, speakers at the launch of Croner's new guide to the Act also criticised the legislation for not going far enough because it failed to create a new offence for individual directors who control large corporations. This view of course concurs with that of most trade unions and groups such as Hazards, Families Against Corporate Killing, and Centre for Corporate Accountability.
People Bulletin quote Norman Selwyn, author of Selwyn's Law of Employment, as saying, “It is now estimated that there are likely to be about a dozen or so corporate manslaughter prosecutions each year and that the clarification of the law will more than likely lead to these being successful. The failures of high-profile cases such as the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in 1987 and the Southall rail accident in 1997 are unlikely to be repeated. But the Corporate Manslaughter Act is by no means perfect. It is strange that it does not place specific health and safety duties on company directors. All corporate entities, whether large or small, including many government departments, are now within the scope of the law. But major industrial accidents will only have a realistic chance of greater prevention if boards of directors formally and publicly accept their collective roles on safety.”
The report explains the legislation as 'establishing a wider basis of liability by looking at the way companies organise and run their activities, focusing on management failure rather than the failings of individuals. In the past proving corporate manslaughter has been notoriously difficult, but now companies found guilty can face unlimited fines.'
Martin Smith, Croner’s Executive Director, said, “Every company now has a legal responsibility to monitor its activities and management practices to ensure the correct systems are in place to protect health and safety. Those systems should be constantly reviewed with lines of communication between directors and staff always open so that concerns can be raised and properly addressed."
As previously reported by Unionsafety, the view of the CCA is that the legislation will in fact cause a delay in companies being prosecuted. In their press release, David Bergman, Executive Director of the CCA is quoted as saying:
“People have failed to recognise the significance of these clauses – and how they will delay this offence applying to deaths, even those which they are result of very serious management failings.This will have a particular impact upon deaths involving large organisations which often involve evidence that goes back a number of years - relating to decisions taken long ago, or long-standing but poor systems of maintenance, training, or communication of information. It is ironic that it is these very organisations that were virtually immune from prosecution under the old law, and that the new law is designed to encompass. The new offence will only probably start applying to large organisation in relation to deaths that take place quite sometime after 2010.”
The clauses state that “anything done or omitted” relating to the allegation against the organisation must have taken place after 6 April 2008 in order for the offence to apply. “If any of the conduct or events alleged to constitute the offence occurred before”
the old common law offence will continue to apply.
Source: People Bulletin / CCA
