Allgood explains that over the past
decade corporate management strate-
gies at financial institutions have be-
come more sophisticated and compre-
hensive in terms of who does what,
when and where in the event of a crisis
or emergency. “We lived through 9/11,
SARS and H1N1 that triggered the in-
vocation of a crisis management plan,
where systems were tested, lessons
were learned and improvements were
made if necessary.”
Allgood says that the crisis manage-
ment plan at RBC involves the par-
ticipation of members of the in-house
operations, technical support, business
and legal groups, among others. While
corporate counsel might not get directly
involved in an emergency, say, involving
a natural disaster—when issues of the
security and safety of employees become
paramount—they will take the lead
whenever the scent of litigation is in the
air or the principal reason for the crisis
involves some legal issue.
Beyond fulfilling its primary role in
representing the company in the event
of a lawsuit, corporate counsel will also
deal with the communications team to
develop a strategy in “what we are go-
ing to say and to whom we are going to
say it,” explains Allgood, who adds that
lawyers ordinarily would not also serve
as a company spokesperson and pub-
licly comment on an issue since coun-
sel could be summoned to testify in the
event of a trial.
1982
JOHNSON
& JOHNSON INC.
➾ Seven people in the Chicago area
died after taking cyanide-laced capsules
of Extra-Strength Tylenol, the Johnson
& Johnson Inc.’s best-selling product
at the time. In the first product recall
in the world Johnson & Johnson pulled
an estimated 31 million bottles of
Tylenol capsules off the shelves, offered
consumers safer replacement tablets
free of charge and introduced tamper-
proof packaging to the world. James
Burke, the company’s chairman at the
time, also later held a news conference
and gave a full chronology of the steps Johnson & Johnson had taken to make
its pain reliever safe. The case remains unsolved.
2007
MENU FOODS INCOME FUND
➾ When Menu Foods faced class actions over its wet dog and cat food
involved in a major product recall across North America in 2007 following
numerous reports of pets becoming ill or dying after consuming the products
that contained contaminated wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate — it
was the “antithesis” to Maple Leaf’s approach over its crisis, says Merchant
Law Group’s Tony Merchant. He explains the Mississauga, Ont.-based pet
food manufacturer
“held back information,”
had “big fights” with
counsel representing the
class-action plaintiffs
and “ended up changing
the names of some of
its products, so some
product lines just
died out.”
