A fine of £100,000 was originally imposed by Southwark Crown Court against Marble City Ltd, plus cost of £47,564 and fines of £10,000 each for the two directors.

A claim that the judge had not given enough credit to the mitigating factors, was rejected by the Court of Appeal. The court said that the sentencing guidelines deliberately contain no starting point for fines. It pointed to the foreword in the guidelines written by Lord Judge who acknowledged that the guidelines take a "different form from that used for most other offences", as a result of the very "wide variation in culpability" between defendant companies.

This ruling essentially leaves the starting-point for fines up to the judge of first instance.