Companies should be hit with “punitive and significant” fines for manslaughter

“The advice is clear – punitive and significant fines should be imposed both to deter and to reflect public concern at avoidable loss of life,” stated the Council as it launched the guidelines.

The SGC advises high penalties to UK courts to help prevent corporate manslaughter. It said that fines for organisations found guilty of corporate manslaughter could reach millions of pounds and “should seldom be below £500,000.” For other health and safety offences that cause death, fines “from £100,000 up to hundreds of thousands of pounds” should be imposed, it stated.

hide

When fixing a fine, a court should not be influenced by the impact on shareholders and directors, nor consider the costs of complying with other sanctions, stated the body. However, it added that the effect on the employment of the innocent may be relevant, as may the effect on provision of services to the public.

Factors that should increase the seriousness of the offence include the ability to spot serious injury, whether non-compliance was common and widespread within the organisation, and how far up the organisation responsibility for the breach went, stated the SGC.

Other factors that would “aggravate” the offence and raise the fine above the relevant minimum level include the number of deaths and serious injury caused, injury to vulnerable persons, failure to heed warnings or respond to near misses of a similar nature, cost-cutting, and deliberate failure to obtain or comply with relevant licences, added the group.

Publicity Orders that force organisations to publish statements about their conviction for corporate manslaughter, details of the offence and the fine itself should be part of the penalty and be imposed in virtually all cases, stated the SGC.

Council member and Vice President of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Lord Justice Anthony Hughes said; “Fines cannot and do not attempt to value a human life – compensation will be assessed separately in these cases. These are serious offences and the fines must be punitive and substantial and have an impact on the company or organisation.”

Despite these harsh words of warning to corporate executives, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the Chartered body for health and safety professionals that has more than 36,000 members in 85 countries, said that it believes an opportunity has been missed to ensure punishments have equal economic impact across organisations of different size and to emphasise the need for cultural change in many convicted organisations.

“We believe using percentage of annual turnover (or equivalent) in setting fines would have helped ensure convicted organisations of different sizes felt the financial impact more equally,” said IOSH policy and technical director Richard Jones.

“Remedial orders should also address the vital need for deep-seated cultural issues to be tackled where these have contributed to the offence,” he added.

“Based on regulator guidance, we say this could include measures such as compulsory training or retraining in health and safety management for directors and senior managers, appropriate use of behavioural safety programmes, the introduction of third-party audit and access to competent health and safety advice,” continued Mr. Jones.