H&S Bites 5: Companies with no employees

By Olivia Pointon, Lloyd Nail & Charlotte Whitaker

As part of our ‘H&S Bites’ series, we are looking at some of the largest health and safety fines imposed over the last 12 months and the practical lessons that flow from them, as well as some interesting trends identified by our Health & Safety specialist team, part of our wider Corporate crime, investigations and inquiries team.

Key facts

In 2018, a surveyor suffered serious injuries from being struck by a 115-kilogram lighting carriage when the wires lifting it into place failed. In April 2026, The Channel Tunnel Group Limited (“CTGL”, also known as Eurotunnel) was fined £2.25 million. The prosecution was brought by the Office of Rail and Road (“ORR”) – the safety regulator for Britain’s railways and road network. CTGL pleaded guilty to breach of section 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (“HSWA”). 

Section 4 protects non-employees using the premises of a third party as a workplace or for work activities. It requires those with control of the premises to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the following elements are safe and without risks to health:

• the premises; 

• all means of access and egress available for use by persons using the premises; and/or

• any plant or equipment in the premises or provided for use there.  

CTGL – along with its French partner, France Manche SA – maintains and operates the infrastructure and equipment necessary for the running of the Channel Tunnel. However, staff based at the Folkestone terminal, including the injured surveyor, were employed by third-party contractors. 

Whilst CTGL did not employ the (injured) surveyor, the Court held that CTGL had control of both the site (the Folkestone terminal) and plant (the lighting masts and associated equipment) involved in the incident, and therefore owed a Section 4 duty. CTGL failed to discharge this duty due to, in the ORR’s words, a “catalogue of what were entirely preventable maintenance and planning errors”. 

Practical points

Whilst Section 4 prosecutions are comparatively infrequent, the CTGL fine is an important reminder that:

1. Those who have control of workplace premises (which may include landlords, landowners or facility managers) may be liable under HSWA for ‘workplace incidents’, even if their own employees are not involved, and indeed even if they have no employees (e.g. a shell company which holds premises and contracts with others to manage it). 

2. Companies cannot contract out of HSWA duties which health and safety law attributes to them. Section 4 is one of a number of HSWA obligations which should be of particular interest to group entities who are considering where health and safety risk liabilities may sit within their group structure. 

3. Health and safety investigations can take time, and parties will be expected to cooperate fully throughout. Here, the incident took place on 5 April 2018, with the ORR making the decision to commence proceedings in 2023. CTGL was fined on 10 April 2026, with the costs to be determined at a later date – a period of 8 years from incident to prosecution outcome.

4. More generally, the ORR noted that: “This case serves as another reminder to industry that regular maintenance of equipment and thorough and appropriate risk-assessments in carrying out works is crucial to help prevent a repeat of such an event”. In Bite 3 of this series, we summarised HSE’s suggested five-step approach to risk assessments. 

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Read the previous article in our series: H&S Bites 4: Information sharing and avoiding siloes - Burges Salmon