Corporate manslaughter: how much could your organisation be fined?

27/10/2010

By Henar Dyson, Senior Associate in Corporate & Commercial

The Sentencing Guidelines Council (SGC) has published guidance on the fines that can be imposed on organisations convicted under the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007. The Act, which has been in force since 2007, created a new offence by which an organisation can be guilty of manslaughter.

The guidelines make clear that the court assessing the fine should not take account of the possible effect of any fine on the shareholders of a company. The guidelines go so far as to state that in extreme cases, it may even be appropriate for the fine to put the organisation out of business.

Fines under the Act are unlimited. The guidelines state that fines will seldom be less than £500,000 and “may be measured in millions of pounds”.