Crisis Communications Experience

No company is immune to crisis. Even the best-managed, most ethical corporations are sometimes confronted by events and circumstances with the potential to damage reputations, customer relations, and investor confidence.

In developing strategies and responses, Donley Communications’ counsel rests on long experience, solid strategic thinking, exceptional media knowledge, and trust-based relationships with the national press.

Not all crisis assignments – particularly those handled successfully – can be disclosed, but our broad-ranging representations have included:

• SEC consent decrees for major firms in both the accounting and securities industries
• SEC/NASD investigation of a securities firm and the resignation of a founding partner
• Floundering and eventual bankruptcy of the mortgage origination subsidiary of a leading investment bank during the 2007 credit meltdown
• Representation of a key investment banker in the Texaco-Pennzoil litigation
• Sudden resignation of two different investment banking CEOs
• Departures of key law firm and investment banking firm partners
• Shutting down of a New York law firm
• M&A and hostile takeover bids
• Allegations of money laundering in the Miami office of a major brokerage firm
• Litigation support in a nationwide healthcare class-action lawsuit
• Representation of a major West Coast bank in a money market fund rules breach
• Return of the Washington State Public Power System to the debt market eight years after a major default
• Name change and repositioning of a major actuarial firm
• Representation of a N.Y. state mutual insurance company in a failed demutualization
• Worked out a crisis communications plan for Praxair and prepared executives for media activity for accidents on premises and in transportation (trucking)
• Media coaching for the senior management of the NYSE after the crash of 1987
• Positioning Union Carbide for a defense of chemical manufacturing following the Bopal disaster
• Working with the environmental department of Glaxo Smithkline in developing a crisis communications plan
• Preparing all senior management of British Petroleum (76 persons, 18 different sessions) for media appearances and press conferences in the event of oil spills
• Working with White & Case on the media attention that arose when Rudy Giuliani joined that firm which at the time represented General Manuel Noriega of Panama
• Advising the Museum of Modern Art on media, member and community communications when it sold its air rights, permitting the construction of residential condominiums adjacent to the museum.