Workplace Integrity and Crisis Response

Arnold & Porter’s Workplace Integrity and Crisis Response practice provides clients with a robust range of expertise to deal with every stage of a potential or actual crisis—from contingency to prevention, response and recovery. The programme comprises the following flexible core services: 

• Policy and procedure review and implementation; provides for wide ranging review and implementation options, from a simple ‘health-check’ of key documents, to the creation of a comprehensive new suite of rules and regulations with accompanying implementation across an organisation, from the ground up. This might include the creation and implementation of so-called "whistleblower" policies and  establishing a framework for how an organisation may respond to anonymous reports of wrongdoing.
• Training; designed to educate employees on the characteristics and legal treatment of various forms of unacceptable and potentially criminal or otherwise actionable conduct, such as: unconscious bias and discrimination, defamation, harassment, and sexual offences. We offer clients a wide variety of training options, ranging from the provision of guidance documents to be distributed to staff as a complement to policies and procedures, to full workshops looking at specific issues in detail.
• Crisis and reputation management; handling matters involving whistleblowing, civil disputes, and criminal and regulatory enforcement. These challenging situations require that reports of impropriety are handled in an ordered, efficient and, risk-averse manner that protects the company and its reputation, whilst keeping in mind the needs of all relevant parties. The protocol is scalable, dealing with a number of general subjects pertinent to any report, including: recording, escalation, document preservation, employee protection, and employment law considerations.
• Investigation; paramount to any internal investigation conducted by our Workplace Integrity and Crisis Response team is that it is handled efficiently, sensitively and with a degree of independence and objectivity. Our team of solicitors and barristers are highly experienced in handling internal investigations across a diverse array of industries involving employee misconduct, whistleblowing, and criminal offences including fraud, bribery and corruption, often across multiple jurisdictions. 
• Ongoing strategy support;  should a report and internal investigation result in findings being made against an employee or the company itself, the possibility of the company being engaged in litigious proceedings and/or face reputational damage can become very real. In these circumstances, we provide ongoing strategic support to in-house and co-counsel on appropriate measures that could be taken to assist in the resolution of any legal actions. 

Our Workplace Integrity and Crisis Response practice harnesses our deep experience in supporting clients on matters which have garnered significant public attention and the strategic knowledge gained in the handling of these cases.