Does the long-awaited corporate manslaughter legislation represent a lost opportunity? asks Bilal Rawat
Alongside the ritual demise of British hopes at Wimbledon, the summer of 2006 was marked by predictions that an offence of corporate manslaughter would be enacted by April 2007. Sadly, these proved premature. A commitment to introduce legislation on corporate killing first appeared in the Labour manifesto of 1997. With the departure of Tony Blair still fresh in our minds, it has yet to become law. There remains cautious optimism that this measure will be implemented before the end of the year.
A NEW STATUTORY OFFENCE
Currently, a company can only be convicted of the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter if an officer is first found guilty of the same offence. That person must be identified as a “directing mind” of the company—someone so senior as to embody the organisation. This is the identification principle. In prosecutions involving large organisations with complex management structures it has proved difficult to identify a directing mind to establish liability. The seven successful prosecutions since 1990 all involved small companies. The uncomfortable consequence of the
