Damage limitation – effective post-incident communications: Ryan McSharry writes for Fraud Intelligence

In the event of economic crime, how an organisation comes through may be as much down to how it manages disclosures and responds to questions from different stakeholders as to the quality of any forensic investigation.

Infinite Global UK head of Crisis and Litigation Ryan McSharry offers a primer in crisis comms for Fraud Intelligence.

Extract

When an allegation of fraud, bribery or corruption hits, organisations must quickly and accurately establish the facts.

This is essential if they are to rectify the problem and mitigate the reputational dangers where possible. There is a need to demonstrate that the issue is being taken seriously, to prevent hearsay, misinformation, and criticism from exacerbating any damage already done: that might mean instigating an investigation, either internal or by an outside third-party lawyers and/or fraud and forensics specialists.

Holding the organisation up to scrutiny in this way can be pivotal to re-establishing its integrity and building back trust but it does carry significant risks.

If an investigation is handled badly from a communications perspective, efforts to create transparency will be undermined, and – far from being ‘seen to be doing the right thing’ – companies could find themselves facing even more devastating reputational fallout as a result.

The full article is available to read here.