The Millennium Bug is set to strike unwary companies and even home owners on January 1st, 2000, unless care is taken to ensure that computer programmes that run many systems in factories, plants, offices and homes are re-programmed to recognise the change of millennium date. The Bank of Ireland admitted at its recent a.g.m. that it will spend another £20 million next year to solve the problem. However, risk management consultants are now warning company directors of two other by-products of the Year 2000 problem. The first is that their insurers are unlikely to accept claims related to computer date failure as it has been so well publicised. The second is that they could be personally liable to employees, shareholders and customers if something goes wrong and they were found not to have taken all safeguards and procedures to ensure that the worst scenario did not occur.

At a recent address at a seminar on the Year 2000 problem sponsored by the risk management consultants, J&H Marsh McLennan, Mr Chris Gooding of the UK legal firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and McCrae, said that a new offence in Britain, "corporate killing", which can apply to disasters and can result in unlimited fines for companies found guilty, could come into play.