The Scottish Law Commission has published a Discussion Paper on the criminal liability of partnerships.

The paper follows a fatal fire at the Rosepark nursing home in Uddingston in 2004 after which the Crown’s attempts to prosecute the partnership (for health and safety offences) failed on the basis the partnership had been dissolved and therefore no longer had any legal existence.

The paper considers ways of preventing the frustration of prosecutions of partnerships due to their dissolution and also looks at the circumstances in which individual partners may be held criminally liable for offences committed by a partnership questioning whether legislation should be introduced to make it easier to prosecute partners as individuals.

The SLC’s news release is here.

The Discussion Paper is available here.