Corporate Manslaughter And Corporate Homicide Act 2007

Background

The introduction of the offence of corporate manslaughter (corporate homicide in Scotland)¹ in April 2008 was inevitably going to trigger debate – as to whether the offence will provide the panacea for all ills when it comes to corporations being held accountable for deaths that occur in connection with the organisation, whether the Act is a sop to those who have campaigned for its introduction for the past ten years – or that perhaps that the reality is somewhere in between.

Few people will be ignorant of the Act's tortuous passage through Parliament, and the extensive and protracted debates on its provisions. Reform of the law in this area had been on the drawing board for over a decade – prompted by a high degree of public concern about the perceived inability of the law to deliver justice against large corporations where death occurred. This concern was further fuelled and heightened in the wake of a number of high-profile rail accidents where