The Defuse Podcast - Personal Threat Management - The Weekly Guide to Feeling Safer
How do you feel safe in an increasingly toxic and threatening world?
The podcast covers various topics, including stalking, protective security, intelligence, psychological profiling, crisis management, risk management, communications, reputational management, workplace violence, public relations, and more.
Join me in listening to this informative podcast that delves into the critical issues facing private and corporate clients.
Each episode features global experts sharing their insights on preventing and resolving problematic behaviours and security issues that cause harm.
Don't miss out on this valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding and addressing these critical issues. Tune in today!
The Defuse Podcast - Personal Threat Management - The Weekly Guide to Feeling Safer
Reputation Management with Andrew Sanderson – Part 2
What do you do when your reputation or brand is threatened?
Reputation management can mean different things depending on your status. An organisation may have spent millions on developing and building its brand reputation, whilst private clients, UHNW individuals or influencers may rely on their good name to maintain their position and their wealth.
Public inquiries are a subject of constant debate; they can be exhaustive, hugely detailed, politically motivated and take years to conclude. How do you protect your reputation when you're involved in such a public investigation?
In part 2 of this podcast, lawyer Andrew Sanderson provides the answers. Andrew has successfully represented clients in all three of the above scenarios and discusses the complexities and the rights and wrongs of navigating these often deeply personal threats.
Bio
Andrew has nearly 20 years of experience working as a lawyer based in the City of London, advising large national and multinational clients on complex highly complex issues.
He has always adopted a commercial approach when dealing with clients and opponents.
With extensive legal, risk, and business experience, Andrew is a Solicitor-Advocate with rights of audience in the higher courts, both Criminal and Civil.
He has recently joined a new firm, Kingsley Napley
https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/our-people/andrew-sanderson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-sanderson-fcilt-minstta-8023b015/
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Welcome to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Grindel, CEO and founder of Diffuse, a global threat and intelligence consultancy that blends psychology and intelligence to mitigate threats and risks to prominent people and brands.
Speaker 2:Today is part two of my conversation with Andrew Sanderson. Andrew's a good friend. He's been a lawyer, which doesn't mean to say he can't be a good friend Been a lawyer for 20 years now, or over 20 years. Works as a lawyer based in the city of London, advising large national and multinational clients on complex, high value issues. He's always adopted a commercial approach when dealing with both clients and opponents and possessing extensive legal risk and business experience. He's a solicitor advocate with rights of audience in the high courts, both criminal and civil, and if you're not sure what that means, make sure you listen to the first podcast, part one of this podcast, because Andrew goes into some detail explaining all about that.
Speaker 2:He's recently joined his new firm, which is Kinsley Napoli, so welcome back, andrew. We're going to get so. Last time we talked about difference, about the law and where your interest in the law came from, and issues around NDAs and costs and all sorts of things like that. I think this time what we're going to do is get into the more nuts and bolts of an area that I know you focus on and an area that is a very growing business in itself, an industry in itself, which is reputational management, and we see lots of organizations who call themselves reputational management organizations and they have different ways of attempting to manage people's reputations. What does reputational management mean to you from a legal perspective?
Speaker 3:so we, we often spend a lot of time with clients not actually looking at, you know, the legal side of it. It is, uh, but the client might come to us and they've been involved in a particular incident and that could be, you know, anything from, say, a health and safety incident, a data breach. Um, they've had, uh, an investigation by a regulator. You know there is a whole host and, yes, there's the legal process behind that. So there's the investigation, there's, you know, potentially some sort of regulatory action or prosecution or litigation that comes out of that. And that's one side of it.
Speaker 3:But, aligned to that, clients, often the biggest cost and biggest impact for a client is on reputation management. Most businesses spend a huge amount of time and you know a lot of the time, a huge amount of money, building a reputation or a brand and that's how they make their money and those brands and those reputations they protect. They protect them through registering IP. They protect it through making sure that the values of the company reflect that brand and that reputation, reputation. And when something happens that could impact on that reputation, then they are very key to protect it. And there are, as you mentioned, there are firms out there who would say we're reputational management experts and they, you know they may have a background in terms of PR, in terms of communications, in terms of marketing. They use a whole host of skills and some of them are very, very good and some of them we work with. But what we do is we sit down with clients in those situations and we look at what's gone wrong. What do they need to be doing to minimise any impact on them? And there are, you know, there are things around the law that we can do to help with that. There are strategies we can put in place with PR teams and comms teams and sort of other associated organisations who can look at various parts of the business and sort of suggest things that we do and we sort of tend to work as a team approach on those. But it's at the heart of it is very much managing what the client's doing. What we need to do to make sure that they um, they are being looked after and that the um, that the focus, the focus is on the right areas.
Speaker 3:So we mentioned in the last podcast about sort of settling matters or dealing with matters. You know it may be that sort of people from the outside will go. Well, if you're, if you're settling it, then surely you're guilty. And it's not always about that. It's about, you know, sort of bringing the, bringing an end to something, bringing some clarity and then getting the business or the individual to move on. So for us, you know we deal with reputation management for corporates, we deal with it for individuals, for high net worth individuals, for people who are in the public eye and their reputation and their, their brand, as it were, is key because it's them and if there's something attacking them, then you know that can be the end of their, their careers or their business. So we we spend a lot of time sort of managing those processes and it's got. You know, sometimes there is a legal element to it, sometimes it's more about bringing in the expertise and working with us and working with the client to manage that.
Speaker 2:So, before we move on to the kind of nuts and bolts, can we just talk about two terms which I think people will be aware of but may not know what they mean and what the difference is? So those terms for me are defamation and libel.
Speaker 3:yeah, yes, yes. So um defamation I mean there's, there's a piece of legislation in in place, um defamation act, which um which has been in place for for quite a while and sort of um I think it's 2003 off the top of my head um and that sort of dealt with a lot of archaic legislation that have been around for, you know, hundreds of years. And um defamation is effectively where somebody says or writes something that defames an individual or an organisation. Basically, they to to put it into everyday speak, they make something up and they publish it, or they say it and then they keep saying it.
Speaker 3:So then, they're basically telling lies about, like I say, an individual. Defamation then breaks down into libel and slander, which people don't realise. So libel, you've written something down, you've published something, and slander is, effectively you're saying it. So that's the sort of differentiation in a very sort of high, high level way of explaining it. Um, effectively, what you're doing is you, you want that individual, that corporate, to stop saying those things about you or your business. So you know, we will have clients who will come to us and say, look, I, I think I've been liable or slandered, um, I want this to stop. And you look at it and, um, you know, maybe they have, uh, and there are, there are occasions when it happens, um, and then maybe they haven't. But what the other party have said is sort of pretty close.
Speaker 3:Now, and if people often get, if an organisation or another individual says something that you don't like, people get very upset because it's personal. And the sort of default position is everyone wants to sue for defamation or libel or slander. And then you've got to sit them down and explain the difference and explain the process. And then you've got to sit them down and explain the difference and explain the process and also explain how costly it is, because it is an incredibly expensive process. It is well out of reach of most people. You know it is eye-wateringly expensive to bring a defamation claim. You know it is ridiculous. We've seen it recently. You know in terms of if you look at sort of Prince Harry, who was recently successful against I think it was the Sun newspaper who had sort of published and also received some information that related to him sort of published and also received some information that related to him, and you know his resources were such that he was able to continue with that case against the son and his parent company. The vast majority of people don't have those resources.
Speaker 3:And also, if we look at corporates that we act for, who may feel that they've been, you know that there is a potential defamation claim here. A lot of the time they won't necessarily start an action, primarily because once you start an action it then generates publicity and then you're generating more publicity around a particular issue. So, although they might be, you know that's what they want to do it might be the worst thing to them. That's not really what you want to do, because you don't want the publicity around this issue.
Speaker 3:So, for example, you know, if you have a corporate that's involved in, you know, environmental issues and you have campaign groups that are bringing up issues in relation to that particular organisation and some of those claims may not be true, you wouldn't necessarily be advising to bring to bring a claim because it is highlighting the issue. So for us, a lot of the time around that subject, it is explaining how costly it is and also, more importantly, that you may not get to where you think you're going to get to because you are, you are going to be increasing the publicity around that point. So there are other things that we tend to do, um, which are, um which is slightly different, which allow us to manage, uh, that whole reputation process and help the client get from where they want to get to to, uh, sorry, from where they are to where they want to get to.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. So, okay, so, when we're talking about the three separate groups and in terms of, you know, private clients or individuals, corporates, and then the kind of public inquiry piece which I know you do some work in, what are the kind of key differences between how you manage reputations in those three different environments?
Speaker 3:starting with the corporate. It's usually around the corporate id and the brand, um, so that's the most important point. Usually there's not an individual involved. Uh, that's sort of front and center, as it were. So it's explaining to the corporate what do we need to do to manage, you know, to protect that brand really, um, and that could be anything from you know, sort of um making sure what we're saying is correct, um, dealing with the sort of press who may pick up on a story on a particular product. You know, if there's a product recall, for example, sort of managing that process, if the corporate's been involved in a fatality incident, for example, sort of managing the press around that and managing that process and, you know, engaging with the regulators and being seen as a good organization, which you know, look I you know there is often a lot of negative publicity where there is a corporate involved in a particular incident. I think what people forget is at the top of that business there are human beings running it and they have the same um, they have the same sort of feelings as everyone else and and if something bad happens, you know they, they do realize this. They're not, they're not faceless, they, it does have an impact. So they want to. They want to, you know, help the vast majority of the time so. But with the corporate it's about managing that big sort of that big picture, that brand high net worth individuals or sort of individuals in the public eye, um can be difficult, um, because by their very nature, a lot of the time they're in the public eye, some, some of them, caught publicity um and enjoy that um, but when that publicity perhaps isn't quite what they expected, they then want that dealt with. We, you know we, we work with other agencies and other organizations, as I mentioned earlier, you know, whether that's pr or whatever it happens to be um to to sort of help with that process. Sometimes it's about catching things early, um, and and sort of helping deal with a settlement process. You know, if they're involved in a piece of litigation, for example, you know sometimes the benefit is settling it early. You know that's fine, that's the nature of the process and sort of reducing the amount of traction in terms of press around that.
Speaker 3:The public inquiry side, which you know sort of at Kingsley Napoli we do a huge amount of, we have, you know, sort of a tier one team that deals with, you know, public inquiry work. You know they're very, very well regarded in that sector. That's a different process. You know public inquiries as it says you know a public inquiry. They're usually looking at fairly sensitive issues. There are often different law firms and different agencies that are involved and at the heart of it is the group or the individual, the families that have been affected by whatever the particular event is being looked at by the public inquiry. So the important thing is having those individuals or families at the heart of that process, which most public inquiries do. You know they spend a lot of time speaking to the families. Could it be better? I'm fairly sure families and individuals say yes, it could, and you know that's a learning process.
Speaker 3:But with that you are, you you've always got an eye on, you know what is it, what is it they're looking for, what are we trying to do, you know where are we trying to get to and managing the comms around that as well. And you have specialist teams that will do the comms because you know sometimes the details of inquiries get lost and you know the important bits get lost. So that's important but they're very different. You've got different pushes and pulls, you know. Going back to the individuals. You know the high net worths or the people in the public eye. You know they've got very specific pushes and pulls in terms of what works for them, what they don't mind for them, what they, what they don't mind seeing, what they don't want to see. The corporate's the same. So it's that balancing act. You have to adapt uh, accordingly. Uh, you know you have to. You have to be aware of what they need, what they don't need and also the type of advice you give and how you give that. I think that's important excuse me, especially.
Speaker 2:The next subject that really, um, probably captures everyone's imagination is how do you manage reputations on the internet?
Speaker 3:okay, yeah, it's really difficult it's. You know, we live in an age where and we've seen it over the last few weeks with the sort of you know, donald Trump coming into the sort of presidency in the US and sort of a lot of things that have sort of been on social media. In terms of that it's easy for have sort of been on social media, in terms of that it's easy for somebody to put something on social media. I don't think necessarily they understand the consequences of that sometimes. I don't think they think that it has an impact and I think sometimes they forget that there could be some serious actions. You know, we've seen and I know this has got a lot of publicity in the UK after the riots that came out of the tragic Southport triple murder.
Speaker 3:You know there was a lot of things on social media and people sort of said, you know, oh, people are being locked up because they've put some words on, you know, x or Twitter or whatever. And they weren't. They were being locked up because what they were saying was inciting violence. And you can't do that, you know. And people talk a lot about free speech and I think people forget, yes, there's free speech, but there's consequences If you're making things up or you're inciting people, you just can't do that. It's not right. So there's very much this sort of ongoing debate we have, I think, for us. You know, corporates often have quite a sophisticated social media strategy and they have experts who are able to, you know, sort of look at any threads or anything that's going on and sort of deal with those organisation that's really attacking them on social media. And it might be that we need to deal with that and sort of send them a what we call a cease and desist letter. You know, stop doing this. This is wrong. You know, this is wrong.
Speaker 3:Um, with individuals, um, you know, again, it's round about reputation for them and and if there are things going out there which are incorrect and and how do we best deal with those. I think the problem. I think the problem is and you I'm sure you speak to experts around this who work on the sort of technical side of social media is that sometimes trying to get things taken down, as it were, can actually cause more publicity than letting them drop to the bottom of, you know, google, page 300. Um, it's a, it's a bit of a balancing act. Do we do something to get it taken down, which makes might generate more publicity, or do we just leave it? Um, and that's sometimes for the clients. You know, what do they want to do? Some just want it to go away. You know there are certain things where they want them dealt with.
Speaker 3:You know if there have been, you know, sort of videos put out there or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 3:You know there's a bit of a trend at the moment on social media of people sort of going around and auditing businesses, where they'll get a drone or a camera and go up to the poor security guard and put the camera in his face and basically try and get a reaction. They get likes or whatever on YouTube and you know we've had organisations who have praised us saying we've got these auditors who are coming to us. What can we do? And the vast majority of the advice we would say to them is if they're going to fly a drone or if they're going to stand there filming the security guard, just let them do it, because 99.9% of the time, they're not actually doing anything wrong and there's not much you can do. If you get into a confrontation with them, they're then going to put that onto YouTube. They'll get their quarter of a million views and they've done their thing, so just ignore it. There was an excellent one the other day, and we've done some work with police forces and other similar organisations who for these type of people.
Speaker 3:They're the people they want to wind up and get a reaction. And there was a. There was a great clip the other day of a very professional police officer who I think was in the Met Police part of SO19, who was being baited for a relatively long period of time and dealt with it perfectly. So the textbook. I couldn't have advised the Met to deal with it in a better way. So we adopt sort of going back to what I was saying, we adopt different strategies.
Speaker 3:It's not all about the law. Sometimes it's more about the practical. Uh, practical effect. And practical, you know, look, if you, if you do a, b and c, it will go away. If you do x, y and z, it's going to be increasing, you're going to have a bigger problem. So what do you want to do? Um, and you know some of it's, some of it's defined by resources, some of it's defined by time, you know, and some of it's defined by resources, some of it's defined by time, you know, and you know it's a complex area but it's very much on a case-by-case, individual-by-individual basis.
Speaker 2:So with what's happening now in the world, with Trump now back in the White House, with Musk taking an even more prominent kind of political role and Meta appearing to row back from some of their restrictions and be a bit more open to the kind of wild west of social media. Do you I mean purely from an opinion perspective do you anticipate that things are going to get worse?
Speaker 3:um, I think there is the potential for an increase in cuban warriors. I think I think trump and his politics sort of almost give um, almost give a uh, a sort of legitimacy to some groups and some individuals with certain views, and they then almost think, well, I can post on X or Facebook and you know it's fine, because President Trump says it's fine. And here in the UK we've seen that as well. And I think I think what you see is, you see a lot of people who hide behind a screen and put in, uh, you know, put online a lot, of, a lot of stuff that's incorrect. You know, uh, the Southport attack, there was so much, so much disinformation. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3:And you know, one of the big things and I sort of struggled with this was around the fact that people felt that there was a cover-up because the police were not giving out huge amounts of information, which I thought A was unfair on the police because I think they gave out. You know, merseyside police were giving out as much information as they possibly could. But also the Crown Prosecution Service, who sat in the background, said, um, there's things we can't comment on because this is a, an active case, an active investigation and there's going to be a prosecution. Now people say that rubbish, we need to hear all this, and that's great, you know. But what they don't realise, the consequence of that is if information is put out there prior to any trial, that could mean that that trial fails and that individual goes free because of things that have been said.
Speaker 3:That's the and there would be absolute. There would be absolute uproar. So I think people just don't understand why things are done. And maybe that's a comms thing, you know, maybe that is the police actually saying look, the reason we can't tell you about this is because and explaining it a bit more, and I'm not being critical of the police there at all Also, I think there's a bit of personal responsibility, you know, if you put something nasty, you know, I think there's a bit of personal responsibility If you put something nasty.
Speaker 3:you know, I always said this if you write something in an email or a letter, if that were to then be published on the front page of the Times or the Sun or the Mirror or whichever particular newspaper, the following day would you be happy with that?
Speaker 3:the answer is yes, then then either the letter's fine or you've got a particularly thick skin, whichever it happens to be. The answer is no, then you shouldn't be writing it. You know it's. I think we have a situation where, like I said, there's a lot of keyboard warriors and they don't see a consequence because they don't see the individual. Um, and you know, attacking an individual online is easy, uh, but it, you know, we've seen a lot of situations where it's had a, had an impact and had a, uh, quite a, quite a severe impact on on individuals. So I think I think, unfortunately, we're going to see more of it, and I think what we'll also see more of is attacks on the legal system here in in England and Wales, certainly probably from the US, probably from Musk, about, you know, sort of people getting up for people, getting locked up for writing on X, and you know it's. It's more, it's more nuanced than that, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a cultural shift as well. I mean, I've worked on high-profile murder inquiries where we were, you know, clearly limiting what was being published, partly because there's always things we restricted because only the killers would know certain things. There's always things we restricted because only the killers would know certain things. Um, and there was never really. I mean there was, you know, there was a bit of um shenanigans around what we're releasing but nowhere near what we're seeing these days, and I think that's a kind of cultural shift around conspiracy theorists and expectations and all that sort of nonsense. But um, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But listen, uh, andrew, really really interesting both, both uh uh sessions. If people want to get hold of you where, where would they find you? How do they get hold of you?
Speaker 3:so, um, so as, as you sort of mentioned at the top, um, I'm a partner at kingsley napoli. Um, we're based in london. Um, my, my email address is aanderson at kingsleynapleycouk. You can put us into Google. We're a tier one firm. People know us. We've got a superb reputation, which I'm not going to claim because I've only been at the firm for a very short period of time, but I have some amazing colleagues who are based there, who are leaders in their sector. So if people want to get in contact, put Kingsley Napoli into Google and we'll come up, and if you want to reach out to me, I'd be more than delighted to have a conversation.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we'll obviously share your details on the podcast, but for now, andrew, thank you so much. It's been as insightful as I knew it would be and I think some really, really interesting information there, so thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Phil, Much appreciated. Brilliant. Thank you for listening to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Rindell, CEO and founder of Diffuse. Please rate, review and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platforms.
