Corporate criminal liability for EHS offences in the UK: Does the Crime and Policing Act 2026 really change the dial?

From 29 June 2026, section 250 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 changes the way criminal liability can be attributed to companies and partnerships in the UK. Where a senior manager acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority commits a criminal offence under UK law, the organisation also commits the offence.

The definition of “senior manager” is functional rather than title-based, capturing any individuals who play a significant role in deciding how the whole or a substantial part of the organisation’s activities are managed or organised, or in actually managing or organising those activities.

The reform is significant. It extends the senior manager attribution model beyond the economic crime context and removes the need, in relevant cases, to prove that the individual wrongdoer represented the company’s “directing mind and will”. For many areas of criminal law, that is a material broadening of corporate exposure.

But what does it mean in practice for environmental, health and safety offences?

Our view is that, in the EHS context, the practical impact is likely to be more limited than the headline reform might suggest.

There are three main reasons:

1. Corporate criminal liability for EHS offences is already well established in the UK. Non-compliance with most core duties and obligations under EHS law in the UK is a criminal offence, and prosecutions of corporate entities for offences related to workplace accidents, safety failures, pollution incidents and permit breaches are routine.

2. Most EHS offences are strict liability. The prosecutor does not therefore need to attribute an individual’s state of mind (such as intent, recklessness or negligence) to the company to establish corporate liability. The company is often the primary offender. For example, liability for compliance with key health and safety duties lies with the "employer", which is usually a corporate entity. Under environmental law, the environmental permit holder, which is usually a corporate entity operating an industrial activity, is liable for any breaches. Although the knowledge and actions of individuals may be relevant at sentencing for assessing culpability, they is not relevant to whether the offence was committed.

A director may be separately liable if the corporate offence was committed with their consent, connivance or neglect (a standard statutory formula in the EHS arena in the UK), but this is essentially the reverse of the position under CAPA: it is a route to individual liability flowing from the corporate offence, rather than a route to corporate liability flowing from the individual’s offence.

3. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, introduced to facilitate the prosecution companies for deaths caused by gross negligence in their activities already assesses corporate liability based on the knowledge and conduct of senior managers, applying a similar test to that introduced under CAPA to attribute negligence to any corporate entity.

That said, the reform should not be dismissed as entirely irrelevant to EHS. It may matter where the underlying offence requires proof of intent, knowledge, recklessness or deliberate conduct. Examples may include certain offences involving wildlife, protected species or habitats. In those cases, conduct by a qualifying senior manager could, in principle, provide a clearer route to corporate liability.

The reform is also a useful reminder of the importance of good governance and incident readiness. Organisations should understand who within the business may fall within the statutory definition of “senior manager”; ensure that delegations of authority and escalation routes are clear; maintain effective EHS compliance systems; and preserve evidence of how key operational decisions are made. Those steps may not provide a statutory defence under CAPA, or to all EHS offences, but they may reduce the likelihood of senior manager offending, and will matter in practice when regulators assess culpability, remediation and enforcement response if an offence has been committed.

DLA Piper’s EHS & Product Compliance team regularly advises on regulatory investigations, inquiries, inquests, prosecutions and civil claims arising from environmental, health and safety incidents. For further information on the issues discussed in this article, please contact any of the authors.