Mace and Jones corporate lawyer Ian Hodgkinson urged business owners to pay close attention to the draft Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

Companies are to face prosecution for manslaughter if they are suspected of causing the death of an employee or member of the public through management failings, a leading law firm warned last night. Mace and Jones corporate lawyer Ian Hodgkinson urged business owners to pay close attention to the draft Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill as it passes through the House of Lords early this year. The Bill follows years of debate in Whitehall - and three manifesto promises from Labour.

'It is vital businesses are aware of how the law is to be changed,' he said.

'The Bill, which covers the whole of the UK, will enable the courts to consider the overall picture of how an organisation's activities were managed, rather than focusing on the actions of one individual.

However, it will not be possible to prosecute a company when the failings are solely at junior levels.

Mr Hodgkinson said an organisation can be guilty of the new offence if someone has been killed as a result of the way in which the company's activities are managed or organized, if this amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care.

'The bill is wideranging in its scope,' he said.

'It will also cover organisations providing goods and services to members of the public and will to an extent lift Crown immunity so that government departments and some other public sector organisations will for the first time be faced with the same regime as the private sector in this regard'.

Mr Hodgkinson added the new offence will not apply to strategic decisions about the spending of public money or activities such as statutory inspection, holding prisoners in detention, the response of the emergency services, policing or child protection.

In 2005 220 people died at work and 117 members of the public were killed in work-related incidents.

Unions claim that in the 30-years since the Health and Safety at Work Act was introduced ten thousand people have been killed in work-related accidents.

In that same 30-year period 11 company directors have been convicted of manslaughter; of those 11 convictions only five directors have ever been imprisoned.