A fine line?

• The recent case of R v Whirlpool UK Appliances Ltd suggests judicial caution towards the imposition of large penalties for major corporate health & safety offenders.

This month marks the second anniversary of the publication of the Sentencing Council’s Health and Safety Offences, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety and Hygiene Offences Definitive Guideline (the Guideline). Similar to equivalent guidelines published for environmental offences (July 2014) and fraud and bribery (October 2014), the Guideline created a new and more prescriptive approach to sentencing corporate offenders for health and safety offences.

The recent Court of Appeal judgment in R v Whirlpool UK Appliances Ltd [2017] EWCA Crim 2186, [2017] All ER (D) 124 (Dec), which reduced a significant first-instance fine following a fatal accident, suggests that, despite early indications that the Guideline could result in very large penalties for major corporate offenders, there is judicial caution towards imposing the kind of ‘blockbuster’ fines which some had expected.

In applying