Do recent environmental fines show the future in Health & Safety cases? Sailesh Mehta joins specialist panel discussion

November 27, 2023

Sailesh Mehta has been invited by the Health & Safety Lawyers’ Association ( HSLA) to join a specialist panel of regulatory lawyers in a discussion on Thursday 30th November, looking at whether recent environmental fines show the future for H&S cases. In recent years there have been fines of £20million and £90million in environmental prosecutions against water companies, the levels of which are yet to be seen in health and safety cases. The panel will consider:

-Will future health and safety practice see fines levied against very large organisations
-Do recent environmental £million fines set a new bar in terms of figures
-What can be learnt from the Courts’ approach to corporate offending and sentencing in these cases that can be taken into health and safety practice

The seminar will be offered both in person and by Zoom and chaired by Amy Sadro (Eversheds Sutherland) with Lisa Roberts KC (Lincoln House Chambers) and Dominic Kay KC (Crown Office Chambers).

Sailesh Mehta is regularly instructed as Leading Counsel in major regulatory cases involving complex, novel or difficult aspects of law and fact. He has acted for the Environmental Agency in cases which have changed regulatory law. In July 2023 he led the team in a prosecution of Thames Water, which was fined £3.3m over river sewage near Gatwick Airport. The latest conviction brought the total amount of fines given to Thames Water since 2017 to £31.7 million for 11 cases prosecuted by Sailesh.

Read more: [Thames Water fined 3.3m over river sewage near gatwick airport]