Crisis Management and Investigations

Working with you to protect your reputation

Reacting now?

Our checklist sets out key considerations in the first 24 hours of any investigation – whether in response to an internal whistleblower or external party like a regulator.

Investigations checklist

Travers Smith's multi-disciplinary crisis management and investigations team will support you across the entire crisis lifecycle, from:

Crisis preparation: implementing preventative measures to avoid, mitigate and prepare for any unexpected issues that have the potential to affect your business and its reputation.
Crisis mobilisation: delivering rapid crisis triage and response to get ahead of the issues and help you take control of the situation.
Investigation: establish if an investigation is required and ensure this is carried out.
Collateral impact management: in parallel with the management of the immediate crisis, and long after that has been resolved, we will help you address potential legal risks and liabilities that arise as a consequence, including litigation, regulatory investigations and enforcement action, and insurance claims.
Post-crisis recovery and remediation: identify the root cause(s) of the issues and work with you to remediate to decrease the likelihood of a recurrence and increase operational resilience.

We are regularly retained as "Crisis Counsel" by companies who understand the value of ensuring effective governance and compliance structures and employee training are in place to avoid unnecessary crises, and being prepared to mobilise quickly when a crisis arises. The first 24 hours of a crisis is critical and the steps taken will have an impact on what follows in terms of impact and outcome.

Areas of risk across your business

PRS, FCA - non-financial misconduct, consumer duty compliance, capital and liquidity issues, liaising with other regulators.
Environmental impacts, included connected to AI; social impacts within businesses and in value chain, including modern slavery risks; net zero transition planning; and greenwashing and/or 'healthwashing' type claims.
Speak up and whistleblowing-related issues; DSARs; harassment allegations, including sexual harassment; employment-related claims; employment advice related to internal and external investigations; ESG social impact risks.
Data breaches, automated decision making, AI causing bias/unfair consumer outcomes.
Supply chain failure/insolvency of key partners, "infection risk" of issues in commercial partners' businesses in key business areas, resulting in disputes/investigations; tax-related issues.
Behavioural competition law investigations (coordinated and unilateral conduct, including dawn raids), standalone and follow-on competition litigation and class actions.
Including via commercial partners' risk exposures
Consumer protection compliance failures, targeted scams by rogue employees, mis-selling claims. 'Failure to prevent' liabilities under e.g. ABC, Fraud laws, and broad application of AML laws, which can have ripple effect in relation to intermediary risk.
Occupational safety risks regarding your employees, as well as more novel risks that can arise relating to mental welfare and regulatory duties in relation to health of wider public.

The crisis management lifecycle: how we will help you

At Travers Smith, our specialist lawyers will assist you with all key steps in the crisis management process, from ensuring all the measures are in place either to prevent a crisis or to mitigate the impact on your business, through taking control of the situation when a crisis does arise and carrying out or commissioning an investigation, to embedding the lessons learned to improve your operational resilience.

Crisis preparation

Get ahead of the game

Identify key areas of risk and put in place all measures to avoid a crisis or to mitigate the reputational and financial impact to your business by ensuring all stakeholders take an effective and proactive approach to risk management
- Review and risk assessment of existing policies and procedures
- Review and risk assessment of risk management systems
- "Mystery Shopper" stress-test of your externally-facing documents and processes
- Horizon scanning for new risks or opportunities
- Cultural audit
- ESG temperature check to identify risks and inform strategy
- Design and implement ESG reporting frameworks
- Gap analysis to identify areas of risk or non-compliance
- War-game scenarios through case studies to shape internal policies and processes
- Deliver internal and practical training to all key stakeholders
- Create bespoke crisis management playbooks, integrating other advisers
- Contractual and third-party risk management support
- Appoint designated crisis response team, with single point of contact
- Test crisis readiness through simulation
Crisis mobilisation

Respond and take control

Carry out rapid crisis triage and response, working as an integrated part of your crisis management team and collaborating closely with other external advisers, to identify the issue, the likely reputational and financial impact, regulatory requirements, the need for an investigation and the assessment of potential claims
- Assess contractual liabilities and how to manage them
- Regulatory notifications and ongoing co-ordination
- Corporate notification obligations, e.g. banking, W&A
- Customer, supplier and other third-party communications
- Management of communications with your PR team, including DSAR risks and management
- Data protection and privacy compliance requirements
- Establish if an (independent) investigation is required and agree scope
- Advise on privilege
- Carry out forensic investigations, using AI to carry out data analysis
- Obtain and preserve evidence
- Advise on and mitigate employment-related issues
- Advise on contractual liabilities & risks and resolution of disputes with customers and suppliers on issues arising from the crisis
Collateral impact

Mitigate liabilities

Proactively manage the company's liabilities when the company, your executives or employees are subject to potential civil and/or criminal exposure.
- Assess potential legal risks and liabilities
- Co-ordinate with in-house counsel, risk, governance and comms teams, and any other external advisers
- Develop strategies for defending claims/taking other legal action, based on risk appetite
- Management of any subsequent dispute resolution issues, including strategic advice and litigation/ADR
- Engage with insurers through to resolution
Post crisis recovery

Identify and remediate to decrease the likelihood of a recurrence and increase operational resilience

Carry out a detailed lessons learned of the issues that resulted in the crisis and identify how to stop these in future, building in resilience at an operational level.
- Root cause analysis and recommendations
- Remediation of any caps or deficient processes and procedures
- Update the crisis management playbooks, communications plans and other documentation
- Embed the lessons learned into your risk management system
- Focussed training on areas where increased resilience is required
- Ongoing workplace support

Selected experience

We have supported our clients on a wide range of investigations including: workplace investigations, internal corporate investigations, regulatory investigations, data breaches, health and safety, environmental incidents, product safety and liability and competition investigations/dawn raids.

Crisis support for an asset manager

End-to-end support for an asset management client, following alleged fraud and misconduct by employees of a recently acquired portfolio company, comprising an investigation (working with a forensic accounting firm and private investigator), including advice on whether there was potential recourse for the client under the SPA; providing assistance with setting up an EBT for the buyback of leaver shares; and supporting the client with a W&I claim.

Internal fact-find investigation

Internal fact-find investigation, following allegations by a whistleblower of a breach of the client in its obligations towards regulators and key stakeholders.

Independent high-profile review

Independent review into the decision to close the Coutts accounts of a prominent political figure and the circumstances surrounding a potential breach of confidentiality, and a general review of their account closure arrangements.

- Conducting an independent investigation for a large multinational healthcare company into alleged director misconduct across multiple jurisdictions.
- Conducting an internal investigation into alleged
  financial irregularities in the Chinese operations of a UK listed company.
- Advising a private equity investor on an investigation into one of its portfolio groups of companies, headquartered in Germany, in response to allegations of fraud, bribery, embezzlement, false accounting and corruption across multiple jurisdictions.
- Investigating and reporting on the circumstances, in particular corporate governance issues, giving rise to a breach by an AIM listed company of the AIM Rules.
- Conducting an investigation on behalf of a private equity house in relation to suspected corrupt payments made by the finance director of one of the PE house’s investee companies.
- Carrying out an investigation for a private equity firm into allegations of fraud at an investee company.
- Advising a private equity firm on widespread allegations of bribery, fraud, personal conflicts, and bullying and harassment against the CEO of a portfolio company.
- Advising the Oversight Committee of the Bank of England (together with Lord Grabiner KC) in connection with its investigation into the role of Bank officials in relation to conduct issues in the foreign exchange market.
- Instructed by the NatWest Group to carry out an independent review into the decision to close the Coutts accounts of a prominent political figure and the circumstances surrounding a potential breach of confidentiality, and a general review of their account closure arrangements.
- Advising a global asset manager on an FCA review of its conduct of, and controls surrounding, several cross-border takeover transactions which featured suspicious price movements.
- Acting for a large bank’s sterling Libor submitter in relation to an FCA investigation and related litigation brought by a counterparty to a trade with his bank.
- Acting for a number of individuals, including senior managers and traders, in relation to FCA enforcement actions.
- Acting for a private equity firm in relation to allegations against a senior partner of criminal misconduct in his private life, flagged to the FCA by a third party.
- Acting for advisory firms and managers under scrutiny in relation to their approach to the valuation of private market assets.
- Carrying out an investigation into a whistleblowing complaint of financial irregularities and workplace culture at a national retailer and advising on related market reporting obligations.
- Advising a client in relation to significant whistleblowing complaint and conducting the investigation, including interviewing a significant number of witnesses across the business.
- Carrying out a cross border harassment investigation for an international client and then advising on the subsequent Employment Tribunal claims.
- Carrying out an investigation into racial discrimination and workplace culture at a food manufacturing business.
- Conducting an investigation and cultural review following allegations of bullying against a senior executive at a FTSE250 company.
- Supporting the board of a global media group
  with an investigation into harassment allegations against its CEO.
- Represented various sporting bodies on a range of EU and UK competition law matters.
- Advising several leading financial services providers on their involvement in competition investigations by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
- Advising a global investment bank on a number of European Commission investigations into alleged anti-competitive practices in respect of its trading activities, and on related investigations in other jurisdictions.
- Represented multiple clients, such as Nomura and Samsung, in CMA and European Commission competition investigations and CMA market studies/investigations.

Excellent, high-quality team that superbly conducts difficult, complex, international investigations with care, thought, determination and commercial nous.

Toby Robinson, co-heads the investigations side of the practice, boasting extensive experience representing banks and financial institutions in FCA enforcement actions, including cases involving LIBOR and market abuse.

Drawing upon its 'deep sector knowledge, practical commerciality, and solutions-focused approach', Travers Smith LLP provides 'first-rate technical regulatory expertise' to a range of financial services clients, from corporates and senior executives to large financial institutions, frequently handling highly sensitive and high-profile internal corporate investigations, FCA enforcement cases, disciplinary proceedings, and regulatory investigations.