Last week Latus assisted a company in WA reduce its prospective court fines from $500,000 to under $50,000. Latus was called into assist once the breaches had occured, breaches that will all in the future fall under the WA Compliance and Enforcement (Chain of Responsibility) laws.
Although the WA Compliance and Enforcement (Chain of Responsibility) laws are yet to come into force, the nature and size of the fines could be considered a market signal as to WA’s intent to stringently enforce C&E.
NSW has already laid over 4500 Chain of Resposnibility Charges
The NSW Roads and Maritime services have published the statistics on Chain of Responsiblity Breaches since 2005, and it makes sobering reading.
- 45 Company Directors and 4 Employers have been charged with over 561 offences.
- 9 Customers (receivers of the freight) have been charged with 514 offences.
- Operators don’t escape either – 8 loaders, 2 Schedulers and 18 employees – facing a total of 70 charges.
- This is in addition to 231 Operators and 60 Consignors.
NSW applies sanctions in addition to substanial fines, such as:
Improvement Notices
An RMS issued sanction that requires a responsible person to remedy a contravention or likely contravention of an applicable road law.
Commercial Benefits Order
A court imposed order that requires a person found guilty of an applicable road law offence to pay a fine which can not exceed three times the gross commercial benefit that a person did or could have obtained by committing an offence against road transport law.
Prohibition Order
A court imposed order that prohibits a person found guilty of an applicable road offence in having any specified roles associated with road transport.
Read the full report here.
Latus specialises in Chain of Responsiblity and Compliance & Enforcement advice, education and solutions. Our Compliance Management Solution for CoR and C&E is already being implemented in over a 100 companies nationwide.
Contact us via email, telephone 1300 00 8386 or chat on-line now.
Mike Wood
Mike Wood, Managing Director – LATUS: Logistic Risk Specialists Mike Wood is the recognised Australian Specialist on Chain of Responsibility Legislation and its Impacts upon the Logistic Industry. Since 2003, Mike has been heavily involved in Chain of Responsibility (known as Compliance and Enforcement in Western Australia). Mike is frequently interviewed or comment sort by Australian Media outlets, as well as providing expert witness testimony in legal proceedings. Most recently engaged by the Western Australian Government to help educate WA businesses on the new Compliance and Enforcement legislation and its impacts on them. Mike regularly advises Governments and Business across South East Asia and Australia on Logistic Issues, and was particularly involved in the Chain of Responsibility legislation, and codes of practice. Mike’s expertise extends to multiple facets of the Supply Chain, having undertaken projects such as, Integrated Logistic Chain Design, Australian Disaster Management Response Logistics, Coal Chain designs, Port operation & infrastructure, Logging Operation design, Sugar production, livestock movements, logging etc.
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