Company directors will be sued after the year 2000 when computer failures due to the `Millennium Bug' lead to death or injury, a member of a leading international law firm warned yesterday.

Mr Chris Gooding, of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & McRae, an English-based company, said that "directors and officers liabilities" (DOAs) would emerge as microprocessors failed because of the inability to read dates beyond December 31st, 1999.

"At the end of the day you have a paper trail leading directly to the board of directors who have ignored the warnings," he said. He predicted there would be loss and injury to people as a result of the bug, especially in the "semi-developed" world where safety checks are not as strict.

A new offence called `corporate killing' had been recognised by the Law Commission in Britain, he said, and the liability was recognised in common law. "There is a very serious risk, where directors have ignored warnings and have started compliance standards far, far too late."

He was speaking at an IMI seminar where his firm introduced a new insurance product `2000 Secure' in association with risk management consultants, J&H Marsh & McLennan, to provide indemnity against Year 2000 losses.