Volvo Convicted Of Manslaughter

Swedish car manufacturing giants Volvo have today been found guilty of manslaughter in a French court following a ruling that a mechanical failure in a set of brakes were responsible for a fatal collision in 1999 which killed two young children, in a decision which sees a rare instance of successful corporate criminal conviction.

The French court today ruled that Volvo were to blame for the incident that saw the deaths of two children back in 1999 when a Volvo 850 spun out of control in the French town of Wasselonne, and found them criminally liable for their part in the accident, despite the fact that Volvo maintain the car involved was in no way faulty.

The decision is a rare instance of a company criminal conviction, particularly in manslaughter cases, given the fundamental difficulty of attributing personality to a fictitious body. An element of legal fiction, the company acts by virtue of its employees, thus making it difficult to attribute the actions or reactions of a particular staff member to the company as a whole.

Additionally in this instance attributing blame to an individual for the alleged fault in the brakes is almost impossible, however this does not automatically infer criminal liability on the company.

The driver of the car, Ms Kohtz was also convicted and sentenced to six months of a suspended sentence, whilst her license was revoked for twelve. Volvo received a fine of 200,000 euros and further will endure the public embarrassment and stigma of having been found guilty of an offence of such gravity.

With criminal conviction of companies a particularly contentious legal issue around the world, today’s judgement against Volvo looks set to cause concern for firms around the globe, as a possible indicator of more aggressive prosecution tactics.

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