This whitepaper aims to assist corporations understand ISO 31030’s potential implications for an employer’s travel security obligations and liabilities in the context of existing United States law. Understanding ISO 31030 will help corporations, to consider the extent to which they are meeting their duty of care1 to their employees and others in the context of travel.
In this whitepaper, we will explore some of the U.S. civil, regulatory, and criminal legal implications that may affect a corporation when an employee or other person suffers harm, injury or death connected to work related travel. It is critical for all businesses to understand the responsibilities they owe to their employees and others, the options that could be available to an employee or other person, and any potential regulatory risk.
Ideally, businesses that require their employees to travel regularly should also have proportionate, periodically reviewed, and monitored compliance policies and procedures in place to help to mitigate the risk of such an incident, and to assist them in responding to any incidents that do take place.
Compliance with the ISO standard could have a variety of potential evidential implications in civil and criminal proceedings. Companies that send employees to places in the U.S. outside of their home location or to foreign destinations will want to ensure travel security risk management policies are reviewed and enforced in accordance with ISO 31030.
For example, the ISO recommends the following regarding accommodation selection: “where an individual or on-site assessment is considered appropriate, an organization should use competent internal or external assessors.”2 Since the ISO 31030 is an industry standard developed by experienced international experts, adherence to this provision could
be beneficial in demonstrating that a business has assessed and managed overseas accommodation risks to the highest possible benchmark. Non-compliance might be detrimental evidence in a civil or criminal assessment of liability.
