UK: Scotland: Law Commission to examine criminal liability of partnerships

The Scottish Law Commission has published its eighth programme of law reform (2010-2014): see here (pdf). One of the short-term projects identified is a review of the criminal liability of partnerships, about which the Commission notes:

Following a fire in a nursing home run by a partnership, the partnership was dissolved, and attempts to indict the dissolved partnership, and/or the members of it, in relation to the causes of the fire failed [see Balmer v Her Majesty's Advocate 2008 SCCR 765, 2008 SLT 799, [2008] HCJAC 44]. It is clear that the traditional concepts of the law of partnership do not fit easily into the modern regulatory structure within which many of these organisations operate. While we and the Law Commission for England and Wales investigated and proposed reforms of the general law of partnership in 2003 [here, pdf], we did not focus particularly on criminal liability. It is, however, an area in which the public might reasonably expect a greater degree of clarity than is currently provided by the law".