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 because of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.
The Act, which came 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 applied to the previous common law corporate manslaughter offence. This is welcome, and consistent with Government and HSE 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.
Companies and organisations should keep their health and safety management systems under review, in particular, the way in which their activities are managed and organised by senior management.
The Institute of Directors and HSE have published guidance for directors on their responsibilities for health and safety:
Source – Health & Safety Executive
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007
The offence
(1)An organisation to which this section applies is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed or organised—
(a) causes a person’s death, and
(b) amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased.
(2)The organisations to which this section applies are—
(a) a corporation;
(b) a department or other body listed in Schedule 1;
(c) a police force;
(d) a partnership, or a trade union or employers’ association, that is an employer.
(3) An organisation is guilty of an offence under this section only if the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its senior management is a substantial element in the breach referred to in subsection (1).
(4) For the purposes of this Act —
(a) “relevant duty of care” has the meaning given by section 2, read with sections 3 to 7;
(b) a breach of a duty of care by an organisation is a “gross” breach if the conduct alleged to amount to a breach of that duty falls far below what can reasonably be expected of the organisation in the circumstances;
(c) “senior management”, in relation to an organisation, means the persons who play significant roles in —
(i) the making of decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of its activities are to be managed or organised, or
(ii) the actual managing or organising of the whole or a substantial part of those activities
(5)The offence under this section is called—
(a) corporate manslaughter, in so far as it is an offence under the law of England and Wales or Northern Ireland;
(b) corporate homicide, in so far as it is an offence under the law of Scotland
(6)An organisation that is guilty of corporate manslaughter or corporate homicide is liable on conviction on indictment to a fine.
(7)The offence of corporate homicide is indictable only in the High Court of Justiciary.
To read more from the Act, please go to the link below –
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (legislation.gov.uk)
