Before the CMCHA: The Identification Principle

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Before the CMCHA: The Identification Principle

As previously established, companies are legal entities. As such, they may be criminally responsible for offences requiring mens rea by application of the identification principle. The identification principle, or doctrine, is where the “acts and state of mind” whom represent the “controlling mind” of the company will be imputed to the company itself (R v Lennards Carrying Co and Asiatic Petroleum (1915); R v Bolton Engineering Co v Graham (1957); (R v Andrews Weatherfoil and others (1972)). These cases were prosecuted under the common law.

The identification principle acknowledges the existence of corporate officers who embody the company when acting in its business. They are known as “controlling officers” as their acts and states of mind are deemed to be those of the company. Thus, criminal conduct by such officers will be offences for which they can be prosecuted both as individuals, but also as the company because of their status.

There have been five principal cases of corporate manslaughter brought to trial before the CMCHA, and only one of them resulted in a successful prosecution. This was a direct consequence of the fact that Peter Kite – owner of OLL Limited – was directly in charge of the activity centre where four teenagers died in the Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy of 1993.

Arguable the most famous corporate manslaughter case came to trial in the late 1980s, when the Herald of Free Enterprise – a car ferry owned by European Ferries – capsized in 1987 off the Belgian coast. This resulted in the loss of 193 lives. The reason for the failure of a successful conviction was due to the fact that there was no “controlling mind” whom the failure could be solely attributed to.

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...he attribution of culpability to limited companies". Cambridge Law Journal 55 (3): 515.

Slapper, Gary (1993). Corporate manslaughter: An examination of the determinants of prosecutorial policy. Social and Legal Studies, 2(4), pp. 423–443.

Wells, C. (1993). "Corporations: culture, risk and criminal liability". Criminal Law Review: 551.

Cases

Attorney General's Reference (No. 2 of 1999) [2000] QB 796, CA

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

R v. HM Coroner for East Kent ex parte Spooner (1989) 88 Cr. App. R. 10 at 17

R v. City of London (1882) St. Tr. 1039 at 1138

Books

Fisse, B. & Braithwaite, J. (1994). Corporations, Crime and Accountability. London: Cambridge University Press.

Matthews, R. (2008). Blackstone's Guide to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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