+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Second Year Company Law Essay

Second Year Company Law Essay

Date post: 15-Apr-2017
Category:
Upload: laura-staunton
View: 327 times
Download: 1 times
Share this document with a friend
21
School of Law Course Code: 2CW1 Title: Though companies may not prosecute, it is well established that in appropriate circumstances, they may be prosecuted, whether vicariously or personally for criminal offences. The circumstances, in which they will be criminally liable, are limited by practical considerations.” Student Name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Year & Course: 2 nd LLB
Transcript
Page 1: Second Year Company Law Essay

School of LawCourse Code: 2CW1

Title: “Though companies may not prosecute, it is well established that in appropriate circumstances, they may be prosecuted, whether vicariously or personally for criminal offences. The circumstances, in which they will be criminally liable, are limited by practical considerations.”

Student Name: Laura Staunton

Student ID No.: 11345581

Year & Course: 2nd LLB

Lecturer Name: Professor Caterina Gardiner

Word Count (inclusive of footnotes but exclusive of bibliography): 5,297

Page 2: Second Year Company Law Essay

An important common law power of members of the public is the power to institute criminal prosecutions – whether or not they themselves have been the victims – as “common informers.”1 This was laid out in The People v Roddy.2 Companies cannot prosecute as “common informers” i.e. they cannot bring criminal proceedings unlike members of the public who can make complaints. In Cumann Luthchleas Gael Teo V Windle3 Dublin Corporation were trying to act as an informer to prosecute the GAA for breach of fire regulations. They were not allowed and had to go through the Gardaí. The case centred round the question whether or not body corporates were entitled to bring private prosecutions without express statutory authorisation. The judgment relied on St. Leonards Shoreditch Guardians v Franklin4 stating “that a body corporate could not be seen as a member of the public… and… where a liability to criminal prosecution was involved, there were no grounds for implying a right in a body corporate to institute proceedings… as a common informer.”5 Lord Coleridge CJ stated that he thought “it undesirable that corporations should be common informers. The general dictum of the text-books is against it. Under all the earlier statutes corporations could not have been informers and… they cannot be so in this case."6 Finlay J was “satisfied…, that a body corporate cannot be seen as a member of the public and… where a liability to criminal prosecution is involved, there are no grounds for implying a right in a body corporate to institute proceedings for an indictable offence …a body corporate cannot, under a general common law principle, prosecute as a common informer… either in relation to summary offences or in relation to indictable offences up to the stage of a return for trial.”7 However, although it has been established that companies cannot be prosecuted, there is a new emergence of law where by a company may be prosecuted, whether vicariously or personally for criminal offences. The circumstances in which they will be criminally liable are limited by practical considerations.8

Traditionally criminal law was more concerned with the responsibility of individuals rather than corporations. Previous opinions on applying criminal liability to a company were against the idea. Denham CJ believed corporations could not be subjected to criminal law as it punishes “violations of social duties that belong to men and subjects.”9 Coffee speaks on Edward, First Baron Thurlow’s, belief that a corporation should not be expected to have a conscience when it has “no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked.”10 This view has changed somewhat in modern times since corporations can be and are being subjected to the criminal law under the regulatory regime. The question has been raised whether or not the

1 Courtney, The law of companies (Tottel Publishing, 3rd edition 2012) 1822 [1977] IR 1773 [1994] 1 IR 5254 (1878) 3 CPD 3775 [1994] 1 IR 525, 5286 (1878) 3 CPD 377, 3817 [1994] 1 IR 525, 5448 Courtney (n 1) 1839 R v Great North of England Railway Company (1846) 9 QB 315, 32610John Coffee, No Soul to Damn: No Body to Kick: An Unscandalized Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment (1981) 79 Mich Law Review 386

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 2

Page 3: Second Year Company Law Essay

general focus of criminal law should be confined to the individuals acting within the company rather than the company itself.

Some academics believe that failing to attach criminal responsibility on a company would be unfair as certain companies promote themselves as distinct personae from their employees through advertising and otherwise.11 Those against imposing liability argue that the conviction of a member of a company should not automatically result in conviction of the company itself unless it participated in the crime or “absent substantial policy considerations such as would justify the imposition on… the company for the acts of… the individual.”12 Previous case law has held that “to impose criminal liability on an employer for the acts of his employee, the offences in question should be essentially regulatory in character, apply where a person has a particular privilege or… duty to ensure that public standards… are maintained, and where it might be difficult, invidious or redundant to seek to make the employee liable.”13 The same may apply to a company being liable for the acts of an employee, director, etc. Ashworth states that companies may have a “momentum and dynamic”14 of their own which seriously influences individual conduct within the company. Thus it is thought that if we were to just focus on individual wrongdoers in the company it would be unjust. However those against this view believe that as all human behaviour, whether within the corporate environment or not is influenced by various factors e.g. family circumstances, economic circumstances, etc. These outside influences don’t provide a defence to individual liability, although they can help in mitigation of the sentence. Another argument is that liability sometimes can’t be attached to a specific individual within the company since the fault may be with the system of management in the company. It may be a “management failure”15 and therefore responsibility for the action may be spread throughout the company as a whole rather than expressly on one individual. Is management failure an inherently criminal thing? Should it just be where the consequences for mismanagement are serious or fatal that the company is held liable? There still isn’t complete understanding as to what exactly is management failure. If it is just mischief then there is an argument that simply introducing measures to improve management practices would be enough to improve the situation e.g. implementing better health and safety regimes.

In 1996 the Law Commission of England and Wales proposed a new offence of homicide aimed specifically at corporations.16 Corporate Killing would be committed where a management failure was a cause of death and the failure fell far below what could reasonably have been expected of the corporation. It was fully brought into law by the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. The Law Commission had recommended that the offence would only apply to corporations however the actual act extended this to partnerships, government departments and police forces.17 The offence is committed where

11 Courtney (n 1) 18312 Ibid13 Re Article 26 and the matter of the Employment Equality Bill 1996 [1997] IR 321, 32614 Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2009)15 Courtney (n 1) 18416 Law Commission of England and Wales, Legislating the Criminal Code: Involuntary Manslaughter (4 March 1996) Law Comm 237 (HC 171)17 Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, s1(2)

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 3

Page 4: Second Year Company Law Essay

the activities managed or organised causes death, or amount to gross breach of a duty of care owed to the deceased.18 Senior management in the organisation have to be substantially involved in the relevant activity before liability can be imposed. The Irish Law Reform Commission19 has followed suit in its 2005 Report on Corporate Killing where it recommended bringing in the offence of corporate manslaughter. The proposals have not made it into the statute books yet but it is expected that ultimately they will receive legislative force.

If managerial failure is to be criminalised who should be penalised, the corporation itself, the individuals within it, or both? The UK has gone down the purely corporate route. Section 18 of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 provides that “an individual cannot be guilty of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of an offence of corporate manslaughter.”20 Ireland proposes the forming of dual offences. Under clause 4 of the Law Reform Commission’s Draft Bill a person of high managerial status of a corporation convicted of corporate manslaughter can be convicted personally if there is evidence of “grossly negligent management causing death” where they knew or ought to have known of the risk but did not take reasonable steps to remove it. 21 Courtney feels that this may “raise an apparent spectre of double jeopardy in some circumstances.”22 This fact doesn’t deter the Irish courts from fixing criminal liability on both the company and its directors, especially where statute permits. In DPP v Roseberry Construction Ltd23 the Court of Criminal Appeal upheld fines against a construction company where breaches of the Health and Safety Acts resulted in a death, whose principle had also been convicted and fined for the same breaches. Hardiman J in his judgment spoke about how the director and the company were two completely separate legal entities and stated that “if someone sued the director in respect of the liabilities of the accused [where the director has incorporated the company] one can assume that the director… would be quick to point out that these are two completely different entities.”24 The director cannot hide behind the veil of incorporation when it suits him and ask to lift it when it doesn’t. Hardiman also pointed out in his judgment that “s.48 of the Act of 1989… specifically provides for the liability of an individual who is a director in addition to the liability of a company.”25

Another reason argued that corporations should be the subject of criminal responsibility is because it is they, rather than individuals within them, who are best placed to prevent or remedy the defects in their operations which led to the incident.26 There is no evidence that there will be a trend of corporations reacting to criminal sanctions by changing their ways and remedying their policies. Caterina Gardiner mentions this in her article “Corporate

18 Ibid s.1(1)19 Law Reform Commission, Corporate Killing (LRC 77—2005)20 Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, s1821 Law Reform Commission, Corporate Killing (LRC 77—2005)22 Courtney (n 1) 18623 [2003] 4 IR 33824 Ibid 33925 Ibid26 Courtney (n 1) 187

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 4

Page 5: Second Year Company Law Essay

Manslaughter.”27 In June of 2000 one of Dublin’s leading construction companies was fined 15,000 under the Health and Safety Act 1989 for failing to secure the safety of one of its employees, a bricklayer who fell to his death when scaffolding collapsed. The Circuit Criminal Court found that it was “inconceivable” that a company of its size had failed to provide the correct scaffolding for its workers and that the fine imposed should be more than a “blip” on the company’s balance sheet.28 The company had been prosecuted under the Health and Safety legislation previously. Kelly J in the High Court had referred to the company as “a criminal and a recidivist at that….”29 A builder had been killed on a site. The company had breached 13 health and safety regulations. The company was “entitled to make profits on the sweat of [their] workers but… not… on the blood and lives of [their] workers.”30 The company had to implement new health and safety regulations and give £100,000 to charity but this did not prevent them from making the same mistake three years later. It is due to repeat cases like this that an argument has been raised that the criminal liability of corporations should be extended beyond the regulatory regime where there may be greater scope for the imposition of remedial measures, as is the case in the UK. Legislation such as the Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989 may not be enough to prevent scenarios like this occurring and as a result the draft bill on corporate homicide needs be enacted.

The circumstances in which companies will be criminally liable are limited as well as this by practical considerations. Certain crimes such as bigamy, perjury31 and rape can only be committed by the person actually charged with them; they can’t be committed by someone else acting on the accused’s behalf. Accordingly, a company is incapable of committing such crimes. However they may be criminally liable as secondary parties to the case. Courtney gives the example of a film company supervising intercourse between a fifteen year old boy and girl. The company and its controllers may be convicted as secondary parties to unlawful sexual intercourse.32 There are also certain punishments which can only be inflicted on human beings, i.e. forms of custody. “Can you raise its common seal?”33 Punishments involving death, corporal punishment or imprisonment are obviously inapplicable to companies. Therefore the only possible punishments that can be placed on a company are fines and sequestration of its assets. Wells criticises the use of fines as “sanction.” “Legal sanctions… are of very little significance to a large corporation. Profits can be increased or undermined from many more sources….”34 She speaks about the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in the United States and how they reward companies that have an effective compliance plan and a reduction in a fine for reporting a breach for which the company would otherwise be liable.35 He describes these corporate fines as the most developed. Ireland may be able to model its system on this to provide incentives to companies to have proper policies in place. Courtney states that it has been argued that companies are well placed to 27 Caterina Gardiner, Corporate Manslaughter (2000) 7(9) CLP 218 28 Irish Times, (June 24 2000)29 Irish Times, (November 18 1997)30 Ibid31 Ronan Keane, Company Law (Tottel Publishing, 4th edition, 2007) 164 32 Courtney (n 1) 18733 R v City of London 8b State Trials 1087, 113834 Wells, Corporations and criminal responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2001) 3435 Ibid

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 5

Page 6: Second Year Company Law Essay

‘buy their way out of justice,’ and that fines in any event punish innocent shareholders rather than the ‘real’ wrongdoers – the management.36 The Law Reform Commission offered a number of solutions in its report including fines, community service orders, remedial orders, adverse publicity orders, restraining orders and injunctions. These solutions need to be implemented for corporate criminal liability to have full effect so that companies have an incentive to behave properly.

Most regulatory offences for which corporations can be prosecuted are offences of strict liability i.e. proof of mens rea on the part of the offender is not needed. Strict liability offences therefore can be applied directly to companies. In R v British Steel37 two workers of British Steel were repositioning a platform. A British Steel engineer was made responsible for supervision. While one of the workers was underneath the platform, another worker walked on it causing it to collapse, fatally injuring the worker underneath. British Steel accepted that the incident constituted a breach of s. 3(1) of the 1974 Act but the defence of reasonable practicability enabled them to submit a defence on the basis that the directing minds of the company had taken all reasonable care in delegating supervision. The Court of Appeal held that s3 (1) imposes absolute liability subject to ‘reasonably practicable’ measures to avert the risk and the appeal was dismissed. The case reinforces the concept that corporations cannot avoid liability simply because the act causing the breach was carried out by someone who was not the directing mind of the company. Nor can they avoid responsibility simply by taking reasonable care to delegate responsibility. Strict liability is more direct than vicarious.38 JC Smith has explained this, stating “where a statutory duty to do something is imposed upon a particular person… and he does not do it… it may be that he has failed to fulfil his duty because his employee or agent has failed to carry out his duties properly but this is not a case of vicarious liability… the duty of the company… was to ensure… that persons are not exposed to risk…”39 Some offences are qualified however by the defence of “reasonable practicality.” The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989 provided that “it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety, health and welfare at work of all his employees.”40 In R v Gateway Foodmarkets Ltd41 a company was convicted of the offence of failing in its duty to ensure, as far as practicable, the health and safety of its employee at a supermarket site when he fell to his death down an unguarded lift shaft carrying out a common informal procedure where employees adjusted the lift mechanism when it became stuck. The Court of Appeal found that store’s failure was attributable to the whole company without the need to consider whether head office knew or ought to have known of the informal procedure. Offences such as these can apply criminal liability directly to a company even if the person who committed the act is not the “directing mind of the company”42. However companies can also be prosecuted vicariously for offences.

36 Courtney (n 1) 18737 [1995] WLR 135638 Courtney (n 1) 18839 [1995] Crim LR 654, 65540 Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989, s6(1)41 [1997] 2 Cr App R 4042 [1995] WLR 1356, 1363

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 6

Page 7: Second Year Company Law Essay

Corporations can be held vicariously liable for crimes of its employees or agents where “a natural person would similarly be vicariously liable.”43 At common law companies generally can’t be liable for criminal acts. This can be seen in Tesco Supermarkets Ltd v Nattrass.44 An old age pensioner wanted to buy washing powder which he saw advertised at a certain price. He couldn’t find it and so complained to the inspector of weights and measures. The company were charged with an offence under s.11 of the trade descriptions act of 1968 that prohibited “false or misleading indications as to the price of goods”. Goods had been advertised for sale for more than what they were. The company was to be liable unless they could prove that the act was due to the default of another person. They said the branch manager was at fault. The branch manager was deemed not to be the brains of the company. The Court said sometimes the board can delegate there discretion to lower down members but there was no evidence of delegation and the actions of the shop manager were not attributed to Tesco. “To constitute a criminal offence, a physical act done by any person must generally be done by him in some reprehensible state of mind. Save in cases of strict liability where a criminal statute… makes the doing of… a crime irrespective of the state of mind in which it is done, criminal law… does not recognise the liability of a principal for the criminal acts of his agent: because it does not ascribe to him his agent's state of mind.”45 A company may be found liable for public nuisance at common law or if a statue provides for it they can be vicariously liable for a crime. In Griffiths v Studebakers46 it was held that “mens rea was not an essential ingredient of the offence in respect of a contravention of the Regulations, and that the respondents were liable to the penalty imposed by section 12 of the Roads Act 1920”47 The offence must usually concern an activity such as “selling”, “offering” or “using” which falls within the scope of the employee’s or agent’s activities.48 In Tesco Stores v Brent London Borough Council49 the company was charged with supplying an '18' category film to a child aged 14, contrary to s 11(1) of the Video Recordings Act 1984. The company relied on s 11(2) (b) of the Act, under which it was a defence to prove that “the accused neither knew nor had reasonable grounds to believe that the person concerned had not attained that age.”50 The cashier did not have reasonable grounds to believe that the person supplied was under 18 and the company was convicted. On appeal the court said that the question was whether the section was concerned with the knowledge and information of the managers of the company or its employee who actually supplied the video film. Of course those who manage a company would have had no knowledge or information as to the age of a casual consumer. But it was not believed that Parliament had contemplated that a company might commit the offence. By contrast, the single-handed shopkeeper would be less readily able to rely on the defence section. His Lordship could not believe that Parliament had intended the large company to be acquitted and the shopkeeper to be convicted and thus the appeal was rejected. In a recent case Dunne’s stores were “convicted of selling alcohol to 15 year old girl

43 Courtney (n 1) 18944 [1972] 2 AC 15345 Ibid 19946 [1924] 1 KB 10247 Ibid 48 Courtney (n 1) 18949 [1993] 1 WLR 103750 Video Recordings Act 1984, s11(2)(b)

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 7

Page 8: Second Year Company Law Essay

during a garda sting operation.” As a result the branch was shut down for four days and they had to pay a fine of €1,500. This is the first conviction under a new scheme which allows Gardaí to use children aged 15, 16 and 17 as undercover agents in off-licences and pubs which they suspect of selling alcohol to minors. The Judge said Dunne’s Stores had not asked the teenager for proof of her age when she purchased the alcohol and the girl said the only question she was asked was if she needed a bag.51 This is believed to be the first conviction under a 2008 amendment to the Intoxicating Liquor Act. It is yet another example of how a company can be found vicariously liable for the acts of its employees. A company may escape being vicariously liable if the act done by their employee or agent is “so personal to the perpetrator as to break the link between the company and its servants or agent.” This occurred in R v Cory Brothers52 where it was held “that the indictment must be quashed, as an indictment will not lie against a corporation either for a felony or for a misdemeanour involving personal violence under section 31 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.”53 However this case was prior to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act and thus the outcome may be different today.

Companies can also be found personally liable for certain crimes where the courts identify the criminal acts and the state of mind of the company’s controllers and thus establish the mens rea of the crime. This is known as the Identification doctrine. Prior to this doctrine being founded it was very difficult to find companies liable for serious mens rea offences. As stated previously, prior thinking on the matter was that a company was unable to be criminally liable as it did not have a mind, or a “soul.”54 The courts created the identification doctrine in Lennard’s Carry Co. Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum55 when Lord Viscount stated a company “has no mind of its own any more than it has a body of its own; its active and directing will must consequently be sought in the person … called an agent, but who is really the directing mind and will of the corporation?... That person may be under the direction of the shareholders in general meeting; that person may be the board of directors itself, or… [a] person [who] has an authority [to] co-ordinate with the board of directors… [that] can only be removed by the general meeting of the company.”56 Lord Denning reiterated this in HL Bolton (Engineering) Ltd v TJ Graham & Sons Ltd57 stating “a company may in many ways be likened to a human body, it has a brain and nerve centre which controls what it does. It also has hands which hold the tools and act in accordance with directions from the centre some of the people in the company are mere servants and agents who are nothing more than hands to do the work and cannot be said to represent the mind or will… The state of mind… managers is the state of mind of the company and is treated by the law as such.” The identification doctrine is further explained in Canadian Dredge58 where Estey J explained “the identity doctrine merges the board of directors, the managing director, the

51 The Irish Independent (February 16 2013)52 [1927] 1 KB 81053 Ibid 81054 Coffee (n 10)55 [1915] AC 70556 Ibid 705, 71357 [1957] 1 QB 15958 Canadian Dredge & Dock Co Ltd v R [1985] 1 SLR 662

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 8

Page 9: Second Year Company Law Essay

superintendent, the manager or anyone else delegated by the board of directors to whom is delegated the governing executive authority of the corporation, and the conduct of any of the merged entities is thereby attributed to the corporation.”59 However there has been much difficulty in applying this doctrine, especially where the prosecutions are to do with manslaughters arising out of major disasters, as not all decisions are made by the “minds” of the company, some are made by “hands” of the company. Not all persons who exercise managerial discretion can be said to be a controlling mind in the company. In Tesco v Natrass and HL Bolton the company wasn’t held liable as the acts of the branch manager were not deemed to be the acts of the “mind and will” of the company. In R v P & O European Ferries (Dover)60 the assistant boson and the chief officer were found not sufficiently high up in the company to constitute its will and mind. They had failed to close bow doors of the ferry and as a result it capsized killing 192 people. The question is whose criminal acts can be regarded as the company’s? Lord Reid in Tesco Supermarkets stated “normally the board of directors, the managing director and perhaps other superior officers of a company carry out functions of management and speak and act as the company. Their subordinates do not.”61 Lord Viscount stated he believed that the acting mind is “a person who is in actual control of the operations of a company or of part of them and who is not responsible to another person in the company for the manner in which he discharges his duties in the sense of being under his orders”62 Diplock and Pearson felt it was those who got their authority from the memorandum of association who were the directing minds. The usual view is that the acts of the board of directors, the managing director, superior officers and managers with delegated powers from the board with full discretion are the controlling mind of the company. In DPP v Kent and Sussex Contractors Ltd63 a transport manager who knowingly produced a false return under certain defence regulations in order to acquire petrol coupons was deemed to be the mind of the company. This was approved in R v ICR Haulage Ltd64 where a company and nine other persons were convicted at common law conspiracy to defraud, as the acts of the managing director were deemed to be the acts of the company. In the controversial decision of Moore v Bresler Ltd65 the company secretary and the sales manager of a branch of the company who had acted in their own interests were deemed to be the company itself. This decision has been heavily criticised by academics as going too far, Estey J observing that “where the corporation benefited or was intended to be benefited from the fraudulent and criminal activities of the directing mind, the rationale of the identification rule holds. Where the delegate of the corporation has turned against his principal, the rationale fades away.”66 This makes sense, how could an employee or agent be the directing mind and will of the company when they are not trying to benefit the company at all, but working for themselves. One major consequence of the identification doctrine is that it is far easier to convict small closely knit companies than it is to convict larger ones as smaller ones tend to be one-man

59 Ibid 314, 336-33760 (1991) 93 Cr App R 7261 Tesco Supermarkets Ltd v Nattrass [1972] 2 AC 153,17162 Ibid, 18763 [1944] 1 KB 14664 [1944] KB 55165 [1944] 2 ALL ER 51566 (n 57)

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 9

Page 10: Second Year Company Law Essay

operations. This can be seen in R v Kite67where a company was convicted of manslaughter after a death of a canoeist during a negligently managed canoeing expedition. The company was essentially a one man operation and it was easily found liable as the managing director was the controlling mind of the company. We can contrast this with P&O where, as power was more delegated down due to the size of the company it was harder to find the controlling mind of the company.

The English have taken the opposite approach than the narrow identification doctrine to deal with statutory offences by corporations. In Re Supply of Read Mixed Concrete (No 2)68 the House of Lords found companies to be in contempt of court when their employees did not co-operate with injunctions and the Restrictive Practices Act 1976. It was held the employees were carrying out the business of the company and even though senior management told them not to engage in the behaviour the company was still held liable. This is similar to Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd v Securities Commission69where two employees who were financial fund managers, unknown to directors used company shares to acquire shares in another company. Under legislation they were supposed to disclose their interest in the company but they failed to do so. The company however was convicted with Hoffman J holding that whether a person’s act or mind could be attributed to the company was a matter of construction of the particular provision under which liability was sought.70 This Privy Council decision raised the question as to whether the identification doctrine was still the correct way to determine company liability as the judge used a statute to come to his decision. The case displaced the identification doctrine and took a broader approach in cases where statutory provisions are concerned and gave recognition to the complexities of diffuse management structures and the fact that corporations don’t always operate on a purely hierarchical mode. Therefore larger companies may be able to be prosecuted easier under this as they would not be protected from the large gaps between the directors and lower managements as they are with the identification doctrine. However this was firmly rejected by the Irish Supreme Court in Re Attorney General’s Reference (No 2 1999)71where the attorney general asked could a non-human defendant be convicted of the crime of manslaughter by gross negligence in the absence of evidence establishing the guilt of an identified human individual for the same crime and the Court of Appeal replied saying no, that a corporation’s liability for manslaughter was based solely on the principle of identification, and that that principle was just as relevant to the actus reus as to the mens rea. Therefore, the case reaffirmed the identification doctrine as the only basis in common law for corporate liability for manslaughter.

In conclusion it has been shown that companies cannot prosecute but in appropriate circumstances they can be prosecuted both vicariously and personally for criminal offences. The rationale for prosecuting companies for serious offences resulting in death is to help maintain high standards of health and safety. Between 1998 and 2004, 88 companies were

67 R v Kite and OLL Ltd, the Irish Independent (9 December 1994)68 [1995] 1 AC 45669 [1995] 2 AC 50070 Ibid 50771 [2000] QB 796

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 10

Page 11: Second Year Company Law Essay

prosecuted under health and safety legislation for breaches, some incidents resulting in multiple fatalities. If companies were unable to be prosecuted than there would be no deterrent against this occurring. The identification doctrine doesn’t work well for larger companies and thus can be viewed as inefficient. It is hard to apply in practice as the accident may not have been caused by one person and it can undermine parliamentary such as in British Steel. The UK approach might be more beneficial as it is more severe on larger companies and would supply and incentive to companies to improve upon their safety standards, etc. However it has been seen as too strict by certain commentators and thus a happy medium between the two may be more beneficial. The Corporate Manslaughter Bill if enacted may improve upon the situation it is hoped.

Bibliography

Courtney, The law of companies (Tottel Publishing, 3rd edition 2012)

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 11

Page 12: Second Year Company Law Essay

John Coffee, No Soul to Damn: No Body to Kick: An Unscandalized Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment (1981) 79 Mich

Law Review 386

Caterina Gardiner, Corporate Manslaughter (2000) 7(9) CLP 218

Irish Times, (June 24 2000)

Irish Times, (November 18 1997)

Ronan Keane, Company Law (Tottel Publishing, 4th edition, 2007)

Wells, Corporations and criminal responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2001)

The Irish Independent (February 16 2013)

R v Kite and OLL Ltd, The Irish Independent (9 December 1994)

List of Cases

The People v Roddy [1977] IR 177

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 12

Page 13: Second Year Company Law Essay

Cumann Luthchleas Gael Teo V Windle [1994] 1 IR 525

St. Leonards Shoreditch Guardians v Franklin (1878) 3 CPD 377

R v Great North of England Railway Company (1846) 9 QB 315

Re Article 26 and the matter of the Employment Equality Bill 1996 [1997] IR 321

Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2009)

DPP v Roseberry Construction Ltd [2003] 4 IR 338

R v City of London 8b State Trials 1087

R v British Steel, [1995] WLR 1356

R v Gateway Foodmarkets Ltd [1997] 2 Cr App R 40

Tesco Supermarkets Ltd v Nattrass [1972] 2 AC 153

Griffiths v Studebakers [1924] 1 KB 102

Tesco Stores v Brent London Borough Council [1993] 1 WLR 1037

Lennard’s Carry Co Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum [1915] AC 705

HL Bolton (Engineering) Ltd v TJ Graham & Sons Ltd [1957] 1 QB 159

Canadian Dredge & Dock Co Ltd v R [1985] 1 SLR 662

R v P & O European Ferries (Dover) (1991) 93 Cr App R 72

DPP v Kent and Sussex Contractors Ltd [1944] 1 KB 146

R v ICR Haulage Ltd [1944] KB 551

Moore v Bresler Ltd [1944] 2 ALL ER 515

Re Supply of Read Mixed Concrete (No 2) [1995] 1 AC 456

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 13

Page 14: Second Year Company Law Essay

Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd v Securities Commission [1995] 2 AC 500

Attorney General’s Reference (No 2 1999 [2000] QB 796

List of Legislation

Law Commission of England and Wales, Legislating the Criminal Code: Involuntary Manslaughter (4 March 1996) Law Comm 237

(HC 171)

Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007

Law Reform Commission, Corporate Killing (LRC 77—2005)

Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989

Video Recordings Act 1984

Offences against the Person Act 1861

Student name: Laura Staunton Student ID No.: 11345581 Page 14


Recommended