CCA Guide To Corporate Manslaughter Act Published

The Centre for Corporate Accountability has published a comprehensive Guidance report on the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act which came into effect Sunday
6 April 2008.

It is intended to help a range of interested groups and individuals – whether they be lawyers, other advisors, bereaved families, trade unions managers, employers or others – to understand the nature of the new offence, the type of organisations to which it applies, the circumstances that will lead to prosecution, areas in which the Act remains open to legal interpretation, and so on.

Specifically, this 60 page Guidance addresses the following questions:

* what kinds of organisations can commit this offence?
* will the offence apply to non-UK organisations?
* why 'retrospective' clauses will mean that prosecution will not take place even though the legal test has been met?
* will the offence apply to deaths outside the UK?
* what kinds of ‘management failures’ can be subject to prosecution?
* how serious does the management failure have to be?
* what link there needs to be between the management failure and the organisation's senior mangement?
* what factors a jury need to consider when determining whether the conduct of the organisation is ‘gross’?
* what will happen to convicted organisations?

Whilst detailed and comprehensive, the guidance tries to explain the new law in as accessible a manner as possible. Some elements of the offence are not clear – and can be interpreted in different ways. Where this is the case, the Guidance analyses what the government intended to mean – through considering what it said in Parliament during the course of debates, the Explanatory Memorandum which was published alongside the Act, and the more recent Home Office guidance - whilst also considering the different ways these elements could be interpreted.

Apart from explaining the current law, this guidance also helps explain how this new ‘statutory’ offence differs from the old ‘common law’ offence, and sets out what were the main arguments on each of the key issues during the process of reform, in the 12 years since the Law Commission in England and Wales published its proposals for reform in 1996.

CCA Website

Source: CCA

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