Penalties for breaches of the Danish Working Environment Act

Arbejdstilsynet may initiate enforcement proceedings without first having issued an improvement notice at an earlier inspection visit. This requires us to identify a breach of clear rules or practices that are well known within the industry and, as a general rule, that there is also a documented risk of occupational accidents or harmful health effects.

Enforcement proceedings may be initiated without a prior improvement notice having been issued at an earlier inspection visit, even where no accident or other injury has occurred in the specific case. It is sufficient that there has been a risk of such an event occurring. Enforcement proceedings may be initiated regardless of whether your company subsequently resolves the working environment problem.

The list below contains a number of examples of breaches that may justify enforcement proceedings without a prior improvement notice. These are typically breaches involving a high risk of accidents or harmful health effects.

Typical areas in which enforcement proceedings may be initiated without a prior improvement notice include:

• Risk of falling from a height.
• Risk of falling through a surface.
• Risk of collapse during excavation work.
• Risk of fire, explosion, suffocation, poisoning or chemical burns.
• Failure to provide adequate bracing when erecting concrete elements.
• Work involving hazardous substances or materials, such as asbestos, without appropriate safety measures.
• Work involving dangerous work equipment where measures have not been taken to prevent crushing injuries, contact with moving machine parts or other dangerous situations.
• Interference with work equipment resulting in safety functions being disabled.
• Unsafe stacking or loading involving a risk of collapse.
• Unsafe lifting of persons.
• Manual lifting of heavy loads involving a risk of injury.
• Unsafe rigging for lifting operations involving a risk of loss of materials and equipment.
• Illegal work performed by young persons, including unlawful lone working and unlawful child labour.
• Serious breaches of the rules on the psychosocial working environment.
• Breaches of the rules on certificates for cranes or forklift trucks.
• Breaches of the rules on the use of safety helmets.
• Failure to notify asbestos work.
• Failure to report occupational accidents and other notifiable incidents to Arbejdstilsynet.
• Failure to prepare a plan for safety and health (PSS) on a construction site, or preparation of an inadequate plan.

When Arbejdstilsynet identifies a breach of working environment legislation, we will normally take enforcement action by issuing an improvement notice requiring a company to remedy the breach immediately or within a specified period. We may initiate enforcement proceedings if we find that your company has failed to comply with a previously issued improvement notice requiring one or more issues to be brought into compliance with working environment legislation.

As an employer, client or other responsible party, you may be fined for failing to comply with an improvement notice issued by Arbejdstilsynet.

Arbejdstilsynet may also request that the prosecution service bring the matter before the courts with a view to the court imposing periodic penalty payments on you as an employer. Periodic penalty payments are penalties that become payable, for example weekly or monthly, until you, as an employer, have resolved the working environment problem.

Arbejdstilsynet may issue administrative fines. This means that the recipient may pay the fine without the breach being reported to the police.

Arbejdstilsynet may issue an administrative fine where:

• The case is clear and straightforward.
• There is established case law or clear guidance in the legislative notes regarding the applicable level of fines in the area concerned.  
• The recipient of the fine has not objected to the case being decided in this manner.
• The case concerns a type of breach covered by the Executive Order on the use of administrative fixed-penalty notices for breaches of working environment legislation. 

All of the above conditions must be satisfied before we can issue a fine. 

You can read more about the types of breaches that may result in an administrative fine in the Executive Order here in Danish

If the conditions for issuing an administrative fine are not met, Arbejdstilsynet will instead report the matter to the police. For example, the matter will be reported to the police if the recipient of an administrative fine states that they do not wish to pay the fine or fails to respond to it.

Further down this page, you can read more about the penalties and fines applicable to employers, supervisors, members of senior management and employees.

Reporting a matter to the police means that Arbejdstilsynet refers the case to the police, who will investigate it further.

The prosecution service will then assess whether there are grounds for imposing a penalty on the company or individual concerned.

Fines

The majority of cases involving breaches of working environment legislation that are reported to the police by Arbejdstilsynet are concluded with a fine.

The prosecution service may choose to issue a fine to the person or company concerned. This is known as an out-of-court fixed penalty notice. If the person or company pays the fine, the case is concluded. If the fine is not paid, the prosecution service will bring the case before the courts. It is then up to the courts to make the final decision in the case.

The prosecution service may also choose to bring the case directly before the courts without first issuing an out-of-court fixed penalty notice.

Imprisonment of members of management in cases involving particularly serious breaches

In cases involving particularly serious breaches of the Working Environment Act, it may be appropriate, in addition to imposing a fine on the company, to impose a penalty on one or more members of management, provided that the person or persons concerned acted intentionally or with gross negligence.

Members of management may include company directors, employers in sole proprietorships and supervisors.

Employers are responsible for ensuring that working conditions are safe and healthy.

An employer may be penalised if they have personally committed a breach of working environment legislation.

Under certain conditions, however, an employer may also be penalised where a breach of the Working Environment Act is committed by an employee of the company. A condition for imposing a penalty is that the breach was committed by one or more persons associated with the company, for example employees, supervisors or members of senior management.

The breach must have been committed intentionally or negligently, that is, by acting in a manner that departs from what would normally be regarded as reasonable and responsible in the circumstances. It is therefore not a requirement that the employer personally acted negligently.

When an employer may be exempt from penalties 

In certain circumstances, an employer may be exempt from penalties where a breach has been committed by an employee. This requires the employer to have done everything possible to ensure a safe and healthy working environment by complying with all obligations set out in Chapter 4 of the Working Environment Act.

When Arbejdstilsynet assesses whether an employer has complied with all obligations under Chapter 4 of the Act, we take the following into account:

• Whether the employer has ensured that the specific working conditions are safe and healthy.
• Whether the employer has planned and organised the work so that it can be carried out in a safe and healthy manner.
• Whether the necessary and appropriate safety equipment is available and complies with the applicable rules on design and use.
• Whether the employer has instructed employees on how the specific work can be carried out safely.
• Whether the employer has exercised effective supervision to ensure that the work is in fact carried out safely.
• Whether the employer has carried out a workplace assessment (APV).
• Whether the employer has established a health and safety organisation where required.

If the employer has fulfilled all of these obligations, no penalty will be imposed.

Fines

An employer may be fined for breaches of the Working Environment Act.

Read more about fines for breaches of the Working Environment Act for employers and how Arbejdstilsynet calculates the amount of fines

Imprisonment 

Members of management may be sentenced to imprisonment for particularly serious breaches of working environment legislation. This includes, for example, members of senior management and employers operating sole proprietorships.

As a supervisor, you have a duty to contribute to ensuring that working conditions within your area of responsibility are safe and healthy.

Arbejdstilsynet may initiate enforcement proceedings against you as a supervisor if you have breached working environment legislation in circumstances where the work could have been carried out safely and lawfully. If your employer has provided the appropriate equipment, given adequate instructions and exercised effective supervision of the work, and you nevertheless breach the legislation, you may be penalised for the breach.

A condition for imposing a penalty is that you acted intentionally or with gross negligence, for example where the breach occurred on your own initiative.

Arbejdstilsynet may initiate enforcement proceedings against you as a supervisor if, through the breach, you have caused injury to employees or other persons at the workplace.

Fines

The basic fine imposed on a supervisor is normally DKK 2,000.

If the breach has resulted in an accident causing serious personal injury or death, the fine is increased to DKK 6,000.

Imprisonment

Members of management may be sentenced to imprisonment for particularly serious breaches of working environment legislation. This includes, for example, supervisors.

Members of senior management are those who form part of the highest level of management within a company, for example board members, managing directors or other senior managers with equivalent overall authority.

As a member of senior management, you are subject to the same duties under the Act as an employer.

Arbejdstilsynet may initiate enforcement proceedings against you as a member of senior management if you have acted intentionally or with gross negligence. 

Fines

There is not yet any established case law regarding fines imposed on members of senior management.

Imprisonment

Members of senior management may be sentenced to imprisonment for particularly serious breaches of working environment legislation. This includes, for example, members of senior management.

As an employee, you have a duty to contribute to ensuring that working conditions within your area of work are safe and healthy.

Arbejdstilsynet may initiate enforcement proceedings against you as an employee if you have breached working environment legislation in circumstances where the work could have been carried out safely and lawfully. If your employer has provided the appropriate equipment, given adequate instructions and exercised effective supervision of the work, and you nevertheless breach the legislation, you may be penalised for the breach.

A condition for imposing a penalty is that you acted intentionally or with gross negligence, for example where the breach occurred on your own initiative.

Arbejdstilsynet will not initiate enforcement proceedings against you as an employee if you were injured in connection with the breach.

Fines

As a general rule, the fine imposed on employees who have breached working environment legislation is DKK 1,000.

The indicative fine level is increased to DKK 2,500 if your employer has fulfilled all obligations under Chapter 4 of the Working Environment Act and you acted intentionally or with gross negligence.

The employer whose employees are actually carrying out work on a construction site bears the primary responsibility for ensuring that the work is planned, organised and carried out in a safe and healthy manner.

However, a client has a number of coordinating responsibilities and is responsible for helping to ensure that the employer is able to carry out construction work in a safe and healthy manner.

A client is responsible for planning, defining and coordinating measures to promote the health and safety of employees on a construction project where more than one employer is carrying out work at the same workplace.

Breaches of working environment legislation committed by clients are subject to penalties.

Fines

A client may be fined for breaches of the Working Environment Act.

The amount of the fine depends on whether the breach poses a risk to health and safety.

Imprisonment

In the vast majority of cases involving breaches of the Working Environment Act, a client will be subject to a fine.

However, in certain cases, it may be appropriate to impose a penalty on one or more members of management in addition to a fine imposed on the company. This applies only where the person or persons concerned acted intentionally or with gross negligence. The breach must be sufficiently documented.

The Working Environment Act provides for penalties of a fine or imprisonment for up to one year. The penalty may be increased to imprisonment for up to two years where the breach has resulted in an accident causing serious personal injury or death.

Only natural persons may be sentenced to imprisonment. Accordingly, imprisonment may be imposed on clients operating smaller sole proprietorships and on members of management where the client company is a legal entity.

There are no known cases in which members of management of a client company have been sentenced to imprisonment for breaches of the Working Environment Act.