Corporate manslaughter
Guidance on the corporate manslaughter offence, how it is defined, prosecutions, penalties and how businesses can avoid being prosecuted through good practice.
A business can be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter if gross failures in the way it manages its activities lead to someone's death. Courts can look at management systems and practices across the whole business and investigate failures. The worst corporate failures to manage health and safety can be prosecuted.
Corporate manslaughter applies to companies and other incorporated organisations. It also applies to partnerships if they are an employer.
The offence doesn't require you to comply with new rules, but you should make sure you're taking proper steps to meet current legal duties. If your business doesn't ensure the safety of others at work, and someone dies as a result, you could be charged with a serious crime. See corporate manslaughter prosecutions and penalties.
This guide explains:
- what corporate manslaughter is in more detail
- who investigates it
- what the penalties are
- how good health and safety management practices can help you avoid prosecution
What is corporate manslaughter?
What corporate manslaughter is and when your business can be prosecuted for this offence, involving a gross breach of duty of care by senior management.
Corporate manslaughter is a criminal offence where a business or organisation is found to have caused a person's death.
Your business can be prosecuted for the offence of corporate manslaughter if the way you manage activities causes a death through a gross breach of duty of care to the deceased. A large part of the breach must have been in the way senior management organised or managed the activities.
Owners and senior managers of businesses cannot personally be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter. However, they can be prosecuted for other offences related to failures in health and safety management. These include gross negligence manslaughter and health and safety offences. The corporate manslaughter law does not change this and individuals will be prosecuted where there is enough evidence and it is in the public interest.
Individual directors or members of staff could also be called as witnesses in a criminal trial for corporate manslaughter.
The corporate manslaughter test
Juries will consider how your business manages the activities that led to the fatal accident. This includes any systems and processes for managing health and safety, how these were operated in practice and the failures that occurred.
Most of the failure must have been caused by senior management, ie the people in your business who make the big decisions. This includes both centralised, headquarters functions as well as those in operational management roles.
To be in 'gross' breach of a duty of care, your business' actions must have fallen far below what could have been reasonably expected in the circumstances. Juries will also take into account any health and safety breaches by the organisation - and how serious they were.
Duty of care
Your business has duties of care that it should meet, for example:
- the systems of work and equipment used by employees
- the condition of worksites and other premises
- products or services supplied to customers
The corporate manslaughter legislation does not create new duties. The law is based on existing health and safety rules.
Complying with the legislation
All employers must already comply with health and safety legislation. The Corporate Manslaughter Act does not affect those requirements. However, the introduction of the criminal offence of corporate manslaughter should encourage you to manage health and safety properly.
Prevent corporate manslaughter
Health and safety legislation imposes obligations on businesses, and failure to comply can lead to prosecution, health and safety must be managed effectively.
If you fail to manage health and safety effectively it can lead to prosecution for a number of different types of offence. It is not only a fatal accident that can lead to prosecution. You are more likely to be prosecuted for other types of offences than corporate manslaughter.
In addition to prosecution, people who are injured as a result of your business' negligence can sue for civil damages.
All employers must follow health and safety law, and if you fail to comply it can lead to action being taken against you. You are responsible for the health and safety of everyone affected by your business and its activities.
Your responsibilities
Specifically, you have a legal responsibility to:
- appoint a competent person for health and safety
- conduct a health and safety risk assessment
- have a health and safety policy in place - if you have five or more employees, this must be in writing
- consult your employees on health and safety
- record and report accidents - see first aid, accidents and illness in the workplace
- provide health and safety training
- take out employer's liability insurance
See health and safety basics for business.
You may need to register your business with the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) or with your local council's environmental health department.
You also have general responsibilities that you should be aware of. These include basic requirements for appropriate ventilation, heating, lighting, workstations, seating and welfare facilities. See workplace welfare facilities and healthy work environment.
In some cases, your industry may have its own specific requirements for keeping your workers safe. Obligations range from providing appropriate protective clothing and equipment through to assessing the risks from hazardous substances, such as asbestos and lead, and taking appropriate precautions.
Manage health and safety effectively
You have a duty of care to ensure that no one is harmed by the activities that your business carries out. Meeting this requirement should involve a comprehensive approach to risk management that is led from the top of your business. If you do not put health and safety at the core of your decision-making you can face major problems. This could lead to incidents that result in both prosecutions and civil action.
Having a board member with specific responsibility for health and safety shows employees that you consider proper health and safety management is important. You should regularly consult your employees on health and safety.
One way to properly manage safety risks in your business is to set up a health and safety management system.
Corporate manslaughter prosecutions and penalties
Who is responsible for investigating corporate manslaughter offences and the penalties that may follow prosecution such as unlimited fine or remedial order.
If your business doesn't meet its obligations, either the business or individual managers and workers can be prosecuted. This could lead to heavy fines, imprisonment and the disqualification of directors. Where a gross failure to fulfil health and safety obligations leads to someone's death, the business itself could face a charge of corporate manslaughter.
Individual managers and workers could face a charge of gross negligence manslaughter.
You must report most serious incidents in the workplace. All work-related deaths should be reported to the police and to the relevant regulator, eg the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland or local council.
Corporate manslaughter investigations
The police will first investigate to see whether a serious criminal offence such as murder or manslaughter has been committed. They will work with the relevant regulators as appropriate. If the police find no evidence of such a serious criminal offence, the investigation is passed over to the relevant regulator.
Cases of corporate manslaughter are likely to be rare because the new offence is intended to cover only the worst cases of failure across a business to manage health and safety properly.
Corporate manslaughter prosecutions
In Northern Ireland, the consent of the relevant Director of Public Prosecutions is needed before a case of corporate manslaughter can be taken to court.
Whether or not a prosecution for corporate manslaughter is brought, other health and safety charges may be taken at the same time. Individual directors, managers or owners may also be prosecuted separately for manslaughter or health and safety offences where there is sufficient evidence.
Corporate manslaughter penalties
Businesses found guilty of corporate manslaughter are liable to an unlimited fine. Courts may also require a business to take steps to address the failures behind the death (a remedial order).