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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act comes into force

04 April 2008

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act comes into force this weekend (6 April).

Under the new law companies, organisations and, for the first time, government bodies face a criminal offence and larger fines if they are found to have caused death due to their gross corporate health and safety failures.

The Corporate Manslaughter Act is a landmark in law and the culmination of ten years of campaigning by unions and other groups.

Well-run businesses that already have effective systems in place for managing health and safety have nothing to fear from the new legislation. But employees of companies, consumers and other individuals will be offered greater protection against the worst cases of corporate negligence.

The new law will focus the minds of those in companies and other organisations by ensuring that they take health and safety obligations seriously.

Justice Minister Maria Eagle said,

'From Sunday the law ensures improved justice for victims of corporate failures. The Act provides that companies and organisations can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter on the basis of gross corporate failures in health and safety.

'We are sending out a very powerful deterrent message to those organisations which do not take their health and safety responsibilities seriously.'

The Corporate Manslaughter Act:

• Does not require organisations or businesses to comply with new regulatory standards. Well-run businesses who are complying with existing health and safety laws have nothing to fear from the new legislation.
• Makes it easier to prosecute companies and other large organisations when gross failures in the management of health and safety lead to death by delivering a new, more effective basis for corporate liability.
• Has reformed the law so that a key obstacle to successful prosecutions has now been removed. Until now, a company could only be convicted of manslaughter if a 'directing mind' (such as a director) at the top of the company was also personally liable.
• Means that both small and large companies can be held liable for manslaughter where gross failures in the management of health and safety cause death, not just health and safety violations.
• Does not apply to individual directors, senior managers or other individuals: it is concerned with the corporate liability of the organisation itself. However, where there is sufficient evidence, individuals can already be prosecuted for gross negligence manslaughter and for health and safety offences. The Act does not change this position.
• Lifts Crown immunity to prosecution. Crown bodies - such as government departments - will be liable to prosecution for the first time. So the Act will apply to companies and other corporate bodies, in the public and private sector, government departments, police forces and certain unincorporated bodies, such as partnerships, where these are employers.

Notes for editors

1. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act was given Royal Assent on 26 July 2007

2. Further details of the Act

3. The Act is about corporate liability, not increasing liability for individual directors or managers who can already be held to account through health and safety laws and the common law of manslaughter.

4. There is no upper limit to what the fine might be because, generally, fines will need to reflect the relative size of the offender and the scale of the offending. The exact size of the fine will be a matter for the courts. In England and Wales, the Sentencing Guidelines Council is working on a guideline to support the new offence and this is expected to be ready in the autumn.

5. All the Act is coming into force, with the exception of the new publicity orders (pending guidance from the Sentencing Guidelines Council) and the application of the offence to deaths in custody (on which the government will produce a progress report to Parliament in July as agreed during the passage of the Bill).

6. Companies and organisations should keep their health and safety management systems under review, in particular, the way in which their activities are managed or organised by their senior management. The Institute of Directors and Health and Safety Executive have published guidance for directors on their responsibilities for health and safety entitled 'Leading health and safety at work: leadership actions for directors and board members', available on the Health and Safety Executive website.

Any further media enquiries on this news release should be directed to Nilima Fox at the Ministry of Justice Press Office on tel. 020 7210 1473