ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the risk of prosecution faced by directors and senior officers and managers under environment laws. In environment law the issue of how far a director or manager can properly delegate his duties to others in the management structure of the company is particularly ill-defined. Some help can be obtained from judicial decisions made under the health and safety legislation, but even there the issue remains uncertain. The statutory language for personal liability of directors and officers under environment legislation is fairly well settled and the environment policy may be used positively by that individual, as an instrument to make clear where his or her responsibility ends. The environment regulators are not following a consistent policy with respect to the prosecution of individual directors and officers. The approach varies both geographically within the UK and between the different environment sectors. As mentioned above, to date most personal prosecutions by the Environment Agency have occurred within the waste industry.