Draft sentencing guidelines have been published for corporate manslaughter offences under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
The draft guidelines suggest that appropriate fines for companies convicted of corporate manslaughter would seldom be less than £500,000 and “may be measured in millions of pounds”. The draft guidelines state that “a fixed correlation between the fine and either turnover or profit is not appropriate”. However, it is suggested that courts should have regard to turnover, profits and also to assets of a company when deciding on levels of fines, and should also consider the financial effect of a fine on employees, but not the effect on shareholders and directors.
It is also recommended that judges should make publicity orders in “virtually all cases”, which would require companies to publicise their conviction so that customers, shareholders and the general public would be made aware of the offence. This could lead to significant reputational damage in addition to the financial penalties.
The draft guidelines are available at
http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/guidelines/council/draft.html and are open for consultation until 5 January 2010.
