Cadbury court fallout could hit Irish companies

Irish companies could be hit by the fallout from a €1.5 million fine that English courts imposed this week on chocolate maker, Cadbury, for breaches of food safety laws.

The English high court fined Cadbury £1 million sterling (€1.5 million) and ordered it to pay £152,000 in costs after the group was convicted of allowing salmonella-infected chocolate on to Irish and British markets from its factory in Birmingham, England. More than 40 people became ill as a result of eating the chocolate.

Solicitor Maree Gallagher, of MGA Regulatory Lawyers, a firm which specialises in this area, warned yesterday that the record fine has set a precedent that could hit Irish food companies doing business in Britain if they were found to have broken the same laws.

Ms Gallagher noted that the fine is evidence that European food safety watchdogs and the courts are taking a tougher line on enforcing regulations and imposing penalties when businesses are found to have broken the law.

Recently, Monaghan District Court sentenced D'Arcy Foods directors Ciaráand Ann McCabe to four months in prison after they were convicted of offences relating to mislabelling beef. The case is the subject of an appeal; it was connected to prosecutions involving Northern Ireland company, Euro Freeze.

However, Ms Gallagher pointed out that it marks a change in the approach taken by the Food Safety Authority (FSA), which brought the prosecution. In the past, she said the FSA and the agencies that work with it had focused on "encouraging compliance" rather than enforcement.

"That's all changed and they've come around very much to enforcement and taking prosecutions," she said. Ms Gallagher added that while the fines that Irish courts can impose for food-safety breaches are low, they could be increased.

She explained that if food companies believe the risk of harming consumers and of being detected is low, they will balance it against the cost of product recalls and allow infected goods on to the market.

Cadbury believed that the particular strain of salmonella that infected its chocolate posed little risk to consumers and allowed infected products on to the market in 2002.

The authorities detected the problem and traced it to the company. "The case shows that the English courts are taking a zero tolerance approach to this," Ms Gallagher added.