Corporate Crisis Solutions

The event that can trigger a corporate crisis can arise from a variety of sources and involve diverse allegations. Whether the so-called “whistle blower” is an informant, a shareholder, or an employee alleging conflict of interest (eg. Olympus) , excess or unauthorised compensation (eg. Hollinger), foreign corrupt practices (eg. SNC Lavalin) or illegal conduct by the entity or employees (eg’s. Newscorp, KPMG, UBS) the result is the same—-the potential for vast market losses , criminal and civil investigations, multiple regulatory and tax investigations, shareholder class actions and, in the worst case, criminal prosecution.

It is an understatement to assert that the speed, sophistication and alacrity of the response of senior management in the early days of such a crisis has the capacity to have enormous impact upon the outcome of such enterprise and life altering events.

The immediate retention of independent defence counsel with deep experience in the management of the onslaught of investigative processes that will inevitably emerge is a minimum requirement. Such counsel should also have broad experience in the development of a preliminary defence strategy and with the identification of key personnel who will require the appointment of cooperative independent representation.

Independent defence counsel will also have to be very familiar with the science related to the conduct of the focused internal and external defence investigation that will be critical to the mounting of an effective long term damage mitigation or defence strategy. (For more detail see: “News”, The Conduct of an Internal Investigation).

If the corporation is a multinational, independent defence counsel will also need to be very experienced in dealing with the complex interrelationships between multi-jurisdictional international investigations and in managing the often overlapping federal, state, security commission , tax agency and civil litigation investigations that inevitably follow.


Finally, and critically, depending upon the circumstances, independent defence counsel must also be very adept at managing the necessary forensic accounting and public relations professionals that often flesh out an effective rapid response defence team.

Martin + Associates enjoys the depth, skills, relationships and critical experience and strategic judgement to manage complex corporate crisis both through negotiation and mitigation if possible and, if necessary, to aggressively litigate to long term solutions.