Under the Health & Safety at work act 1974, all companies have a general duty of care to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees and those members of the public their employees are in contact with.
This expands to the involvement of alcohol and companies are responsible for managing any potential risk associated with members of staff under the influence of alcohol including drink-driving.
The new Corporate Manslaughter Bill is expected to receive its Royal Assent before 20th July 2007 with implementation during October 2007, otherwise it will be early 2008.
In the past if there was a death or injury caused by a business organization it was the job of the prosecutors to highlight an individual who was directly responsible and prosecute that individual.
Under the new Corporate Manslaughter Bill if a business/organization is the cause of death/injury the prosecutors have the ability to prosecute the senior management as a whole for generally failing to act in a responsible manner without highlighting an individual employee.
This makes it considerably easier for the prosecution authorities to bring cases to court and implement large fines on corporations.
The bill also specifies that businesses must also demonstrate that safety is considered before profit.
Under the transport side of things this would cover for example:-
If a driver (eg. a sales rep or a lorry driver) had a road traffic accident because he was either tired from driving for too long, or in a rush because he had too many meetings to attend that day, the company will be held responsible as the management has not put processes in place to manage this.
A major consideration for companies is the morning after effect with drink-driving. If a company representative is involved in a road traffic accident first thing in the morning and is still over the drink drive limit from the night before then once again the company will find themselves in court as processes were not put in place to manage this.
For more information please call David Whittock or Simon Aldridge on 01480 497008.
