The Court of Appeal today backed criminal proceedings brought by the Environment Agency against a waste disposal company that breached the terms of its waste management licence.
The Agency granted the licence for the site at Nant-y-Gwyddon, Rhondda, South Wales, to Rhondda Waste Disposal Ltd in March 1995.
But the company was later found to have allowed the site to be used for dumping calcium sulphate filter cake, which reacted with other waste to produce foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide gas. There was also evidence of pollution of watercourses from lechate running off the site. This caused an outcry from nearby communities.
In 1998 the Agency, acting on its powers under section 37 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, ordered the company to put a cap on the site. When the company failed to comply, the Agency applied to magistrates to impose a fine for breach of the order.
However, Rhondda obtained a High Court order preventing the Agency from continuing the criminal proceedings, on the basis that the company was in administrative receivership and the prosecution would not be in the interests of the company’s creditors.
Allowing the Agency’s appeal, Scott Baker J said today that the judge was in error in the exercise of his discretion. He should not have regarded the interests of the companys creditors as “trumping all other considerations”.
He said that in the event of a criminal conviction, there was a statutory obligation on the court to fix the amount of any fine to take account of all the circumstances, including the financial circumstances of the company.
In the matter of Rhondda Waste Disposal Ltd (in administration) Court of Appeal (Henry and Robert Walker LJJ and Scott Baker J) 10 February 2000
Stephen Hockman QC and Stephen Moverley Smith (instructed by the solicitor to the Environment Agency) appeared for the appellant; Stephen Davies (instructed by Palser Grossman Solicitors, of Cardiff) appeared for the respondent.
PLS News 10/2/2000
