Explain why so few criminal prosecutions for corporate manslaughter succeed, what proposals for reform have been made and what criticisms these reforms have themselves been subjected to.

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Explain why so few criminal prosecutions for corporate manslaughter succeed, what proposals for reform have been made and what criticisms these reforms have themselves been subjected to.

Criminal offences are not only committed by individuals but are also committed by companies. This raises the obvious problem of how do you define the state of mind of the company. Over the last 40 years 22,000 people have been killed at work or business related disasters but they have only been three successful prosecutions for corporate manslaughter. In Kite v OLL Ltd the criminal case against the company collapsed because the prosecution had been unable to satisfy the doctrine of identification. The identification doctrine prevents large corporations from being held responsible for manslaughter. Number of interesting issues arises from this. First, what is doctrine of identification? Second, why should this doctrine act as a barrier to conviction and thirdly is an issue relation to causation – was conduct of corporation a cause of death. The identification doctrine originated from the civil case Lennords Carrying Company Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum Ltd where it was held that act by corporation supreme authority constituted an act of corporation itself.

Doctrine of Identification applies to all offences to which vicarious liability isn’t attached to. Identification allows senior people within a company to be recognised legally as being the company so that any liability they incur will be assigned to the company. In Tesco Supermarkets v Natrass, House of Lords adopted a narrow attitude towards the kind of employees who could be identified within the company. It stated that individuals who have some power of control within the organisation such as managing directors would fall within this doctrine.

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However the restrictive approach laid down by the house of lords was challenged by the privy council in Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd v Securities Commission. Bearing in mind that the judgements of the Privy Council do not bind on domestic courts.

Corporate manslaughter has been criticised as it is very difficult particularly with large companies to identify an individual who represent the company for the purposes of the doctrine of identification.

Rail track and privatised train operators have been the focus of public anger after three rail accidents happened in a period of only four years. ...

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