Big organisations 'will escape manslaughter prosecution'

Legal opinion produced for the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) by Peter Thornton QC and Francis Fitzgibbon of Doughty Street Chambers questioned whether the new corporate manslaughter law would "have teeth at all" in its current form.

The opinion was made public as the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill was being discussed in the House of Lords.

The new offence in its current form would require a substantial element of the gross management failure to be that of "senior managers" within an organisation which caused death.

The legal opinion stated: "It takes no great foresight to see that in a large organisation... senior managers in the company will plausibly deny they are 'senior management'... as they do not have a 'significant role' in those areas of the company's business that directly concern safety and would engage liability.

"If individuals cannot be found who come within the definition, the offence will not have been proved - even though a death has resulted from the company’s bad practices."

The lawyers also argued that organisations would be able to escape prosecution if they "can delegate the function relating to safety to a level of management which is not 'senior'."

'Significant amendments'

In addition, the legal experts claimed that the offence would place a “disproportionate burden on smaller organisations”.

The lawyers said that while larger organisations would be able to escape prosecution due to "the greater the distance between real senior management and those taking decisions that may turn out to cost lives” - smaller companies with "fewer layers of management and fewer places for the senior managers to hide" would be more open to prosecution.

In a briefing to members of the House of Lords, the CCA called for "significant amendments" to the Bill to address the senior management anomaly.

It also called for the offence to apply to unincorporated bodies - such as partnerships - and in any situation where deaths occur outside of the UK, but where the management failure takes place in Britain.

Much tougher sentencing powers – including the power to prevent companies from applying to public tenders, and to make sweeping changes to the safety systems within an organisation - were also needed, according to the CCA.

David Bergman, executive director of the CCA commented: "This Bill is not good enough in its current form. Apart from real problems with the senior management test, there are too many immunities provided to public bodies and for British companies that kill people overseas.

"New sentencing provisions are also also essential. We are looking to the Lords to make these changes , to make this a law capable of delivering justice and accountability in these most serious of cases."