The sentencing guidelines take effect from next Monday, 15 February 2010 and they will apply to all cases that appear before the courts after 15 February, even if the incident occurred a number of months or even years ago.
The final guidelines recommend a starting point of £500,000 for corporate manslaughter cases and £100,000 for deaths arising from health and safety law breaches, but with a clear indication the fine should be "punitive and sufficient to have an impact on the defendant".
Tim Hill, health and safety partner at law firm Eversheds, said: "There are various aggravating or mitigating factors that the court must consider in terms of how serious the offence is and the overall size and financial status of the defendant company will still have to be considered. However, there is a clear intention that there should be a step change in the level of fines, to reflect the public perception that historically fines have been too low.
"In many ways these guidelines simply reflect the steady increase in fines imposed by the courts for health and safety breaches. In conjunction with the threat of up to two years in prison for individual directors, managers or employees for health and safety breaches, organisations should now be in no doubt that demonstrating a strong health and safety culture is as strategically vital as dealing with any other business risk.
"With the first corporate manslaughter prosecution due to commence in the next couple of weeks (Cotswold Geotechnical Limited) it will be very interesting to see how the courts decide to implement the new guidelines in practice."
