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Change in Business Ownership
Question: A small oil refining company is purchased by a larger refining company. As a part of the deal, the small refining company’s crude transportation business unit is also included. However, the crude transportation group was plagued by mismanagement, oil spills, and many recordable injuries over the years including the year of the purchase by the large oil refining company. The crude transportation company is immediately dissolved after the purchase and the assets are sold off. Are their recordable injuries still recordable? If so, who owns them?
Answer: YES. The recordable injuries suffered by the small refining company’s crude transportation unit are still recordable and the logs must be kept by the larger oil refining company. However, only the log for the year of the purchase is kept by the larger refining company. The previous owner of the small company must maintain the logs of the previous four years to meet the five-year requirement.
1904.34 - Change in business ownership: If your business changes ownership, you are responsible for recording and reporting work-related injuries and illnesses only for that period of the year during which you owned the establishment. You must transfer the part 1904 records to the new owner. The new owner must save all records of the establishment kept by the prior owner, as required by § 1904.33 of this part, but need not update or correct the records of the prior owner.
1904.33(a) Basic requirement. You must save the OSHA 300 Log, the privacy case list (if one exists), the annual summary, and the OSHA 301 Incident Report forms for five (5) years following the end of the calendar year that these records cover.