Clifford Chance
Court of Appeal supports major increases in environmental fines for very large organisations
12 June 2015
In the first case since publication of the new Sentencing Guidelines for environmental offences, the Court of Appeal has suggested that fines in the millions of pounds would be appropriate for serious environmental offences (and potentially in excess of £100 million in some circumstances) for very large organisations. The Court made a direct comparison with fines applied to financial services market regulation breaches, suggesting that the lower courts should apply a far tougher approach to environmental crime in the future.
