Sentencing guidelines which recommend significant fines and publicity orders in corporate manslaughter cases have come into effect.
The guidelines provide that appropriate fines for companies convicted of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 would be seldom less than £500,000 and “may be measured in millions of pounds”. For offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 that are shown to have caused death, the recommended range of fine is between £100,000 and “hundreds of thousands of pounds or more”. These penalties represent a significant increase on previous fines for offences involving death, but the recommendation from the draft version of the guidelines that fines should be linked to a percentage of company turnover is not repeated in the final guidelines.
Publicity orders should “ordinarily be imposed” in corporate manslaughter cases, which would require companies to publicise their conviction so that customers, shareholders and the general public would be made aware of the offence.
The guidelines took effect from 15 February 2010 and are available here.
