The consulting engineer and corporate manslaughter risk

Consulting engineers now run the risk of a criminal conviction under the UK Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Surviving the financial impact and inevitable reputational damage from a corporate manslaughter conviction would be a huge challenge to most consulting engineers. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of literature that imparts knowledge and understanding of this risk. As a contribution to the necessary remedial action, this paper applies legal analysis and research methods to the Act, case law and construction industry practice. It assesses the likely impact of the Act on the consulting engineer with respect to five preconditions of a corporate manslaughter conviction: (a) the organisation charged with it is one to which the legislation applies; (b) the organisation owed the victim a 'relevant duty of care'; (c) the way in which the activities were managed or organised amounts to a 'gross breach' of that duty of care; (d) the way in which the organisation's activities were managed or organised caused the death of the victim; and (e) 'the way in which the organisation's activities were managed or organised by its senior management was a substantial element' in the gross breach of duty.