Liability for employees and agents
93 Liability for employees and agents
For the purposes of a prosecution for an offence against this
Act, conduct engaged in on behalf of a person other than a body corporate (in this section called the employer) by an employee or agent of the person within the scope of his or her actual or apparent authority is taken to have been engaged in also by the employer.
An employer may be proceeded against and found guilty under a provision in pursuance of subsection (1), whether or not the employee or agent has been proceeded against or found guilty of an offence against that provision.
It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence committed by virtue of subsection (1) if the defendant establishes that:
the person who committed the offence that the defendant is to be taken to have committed under subsection (1) had, under this Act, a defence to the offence that the defendant is, apart from this subsection, to be taken to have committed;
the act or omission that constituted the offence took place without the defendant's authority, permission or consent;
the defendant did not know, and ought not reasonably be expected to have known, the offence was to be or was being committed and took all reasonable steps to prevent or stop the commission of the offence or a similar offence; or
the defendant could not by the exercise of reasonable diligence have prevented the commission of the offence by the person who committed the offence.
Notwithstanding anything in this Act or the Environmental
Offences and Penalties Act 1996, a person is not liable to be punished by imprisonment for an offence if the person would not have been found guilty of the offence except for subsection (1).
For the purposes of this section, a reference to engaging in conduct is to be read as including a reference to failing or refusing to engage in conduct.
This Act’s bill:Second reading speech
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