A leading European company's corporate executive was accused of serially sexually harassing a subordinate. RBSC developed a strategy to mitigate an unflattering, front-page story planned by a major national financial newspaper.
Client:
Case Study #2
Practices:
Consumer/Retail
Expertise:
Crisis Communications,Litigation Communications
Our Work
A leading European company's corporate executive was accused of serially sexually harassing a subordinate. A multi-million-dollar civil lawsuit was brought by a noted trial lawyer skilled at forcing large settlements in similar cases, largely by feeding information to reporters, encouraging media coverage and casting his targets in an unflattering light. RBSC collaborated with the client’s attorney, and developed a strategy to mitigate an unflattering, front-page story planned by a major national financial newspaper, whose reporter was being fed salacious details by the trial lawyer.
During settlement talks the plaintiff's lawyer threatened to mount a public campaign against the CEO and his company by taking the whole sordid tale to the press. In response, our client reported that in fact a national story would run the next morning, a story that would not cast the plaintiff in a favorable light. In the end, a balanced version of the story was released. But by the time the story went public, the case had settled, and for pennies on the dollar.
