After a delay of some eight or nine years the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill was finally introduced into the House of Commons on 21 July, 2006. Reforming the law in this area has been a longstanding commitment of the present Government.
The current law makes prosecutions extremely difficult and only a handful of companies have been convicted of manslaughter. These have all been small companies as, in order to convict a company of manslaughter under the existing law, it is necessary to show that a senior individual such as a director or senior manager is himself guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. This is practically impossible in large companies with complex management structures. The purpose of the Bill is to make it easier to prosecute companies for manslaughter by removing the focus on individual failings and instead looking at the conduct of senior management collectively. For the first time, government departments and other Crown bodies can be prosecuted for manslaughter as the Bill will remove Crown immunity in certain limited circumstances. The penalty on conviction is an unlimited fine and/or a remedial order.
