A Welsh chemical company has been fined £100,000 for failing to comply with three Improvement Notices.
Mold Crown Court heard Euticals Ltd (formerly Archimica Ltd) manufactures and distributes specialty chemical products at its facility in Sandycroft, Deeside. During a series of HSE visits to the site between March 2010 and October 2010, the company failed to demonstrate that it had suitable measures in place to prevent a major incident.
On 29 March 2010, the HSE issued an Improvement Notice requesting the company supplied missing information from the safety report of its premises.
During subsequent visits by HSE inspector Mark Burton, he identified the firm hadn’t assessed the roles and responsibilities of staff for the management of major hazards. On 1 November 2010, he issued a second Improvement Notice, which required the firm to put arrangements in place to manage major-accident hazards.
Inspector Burton issued another Improvement Notice on the same day, instructing Euticals to put control measures in place to ensure that intrinsic safety equipment was inspected every three years. The company had failed to carry out inspections on a large amount of this equipment for more than six years, and 177 items had failed inspections without any remedial action being taken.
The HSE extended the period of compliance for each notice multiple times, but the company failed to take the necessary actions. Inspector Burton said: “The company had plenty of opportunity to comply with the Improvement Notices after repeated visits from HSE and they still chose not to. They deal with dangerous chemicals every day and have a legal responsibility to make sure that how they do that is safe.
“That responsibility extends not only to their employees but to the site’s neighbours and any visitors, as well as the environment. There’s the possibility for a major incident when manufacturing and distributing this kind of product and failing to plan for it could have devastating consequences.”
On 27 July, Euticals pleaded guilty to breaching s33(1)(g) of the HSWA 1974, for failing to comply with the notices. In addition to the fine, it was ordered to pay £8344 in costs.
In mitigation, the company said it has now spent more than £1million to comply with the notices.
Delivering his sentence, Judge Philip Hughes said: “An aggravating feature is the defendant company’s reckless regard for adhering to the law and somewhat dismissive attitude to those in the HSE trying to guide them and neglecting to take preventative measures to reduce the risks.
“This is a case, which has demonstrated in the defendant company, a persistent lack of management control and abysmal level of disorganisation and incompetence.”
Fire Safety in 2023 eBook
SHP's sister site, IFSEC Insider has released its annual Fire Safety Report for 2023, keeping you up to date with the biggest news and prosecution stories from around the industry.
Chapters include important updates such as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and an overview of the new British Standard for the digital management of fire safety information.
Plus, explore the growing risks of lithium-ion battery fires and hear from experts in disability evacuation and social housing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-20461219
At it again! This excerpt from their website make interesting reading:
Nitrations
Euticals has been performing nitrations for decades. At our Sandycroft site in the UK, we produce isosorbide mononitrate (ISMN) on a large scale via the reaction of isosorbide with red fuming nitric acid. As one of the very few nitrators left in the Western world, Euticals is a tested and reliable partner for nitration and nitric acid oxidation
This is from SHP 09/05/12
‘Commenting on the COMAH review, Business and enterprise minister Mark Prisk said: “‘Focus on Enforcement’ will give businesses in the chemicals sector the chance to make a real difference to the way compliance and protection are achieved on COMAH sites, shaping how companies can best work with regulators in a successful and cost-effective way.’
Clearly, by ignoring the improvement notices, this company’s interpretation focused just on the cost side then!
177 Intrinsic items were deemed to be ineffective and poorly maintained yet no PN was issued?
Intrinsic – implies low flash point implication, with potential catastrophic consequences given other noted failures?
Surely the risk was significant and required immediate prevention of further use? Too bad if you have to replace them, should have looked after them in the first place.
IN`s for this type failure are seriously questionable,
Poor Judgement I think..
Thanks for the link ken. Some company’s never learn.
This company like many other is good at self publicity but congratulations to Mark for getting under their skin and using HSE powers to prevent incidents:
“Through decades of experience in working with hazardous compounds up to very large scale, xLtd maintains the highest level of safety and environmental standards with even the most hazardous and difficult to handle reagents and solvents”
http://www.archimica.com/PDF/ARCHIMICA_Nitrations_and_other_hazardous_chemistries.pdf
“The HSE extended the period of compliance for each notice multiple times”
Why? As an Inspector, I was told that notices should only be extended if there was clear evidence that the company was working towards compliance but, for example, had to wait for availability of a contractor to carry out some work. Here it seems that the company were doing very little in an attempt to comply, so there seems little reason for granting extensions to the notices.