Risks PRs face publishing contentious statements

When contentious issues arise, briefings and statements to the media can leave PRs on the hook for content they publish.

The surge in social media usage in the last decade has underlined that any one of us can be a publisher and we bear legal responsibility for the content we push out. For the comms professional though the increasing use of “edgy” marketing and PR techniques coupled with public disputes leads to greater risk for companies and individuals.

The reason it creates risk for agencies is because all of those involved in publishing a statement can be liable at law - whether that be the client who authorises it, or the agency that crafts and distributes it.

Typically this type of case attracts significant publicity. A notorious example from the early 2000s saw Christine and Neil Hamilton bring proceedings against the publicist Max Clifford over a statement Clifford had issued about the Hamiltons on behalf of a client.

Back in 2008, an extraordinary fall out between Sir Stelios Haji-Iannou and office provider Regus Group led to defamation proceedings over the insinuation Sir Stelios must be lying because Regus’ PR agency Brunswick had issued a statement to the Financial Times denying allegations of dirty tricks.

Last year it was Scottish beer purveyor BrewDog which entered this high-profile subset of defamation claims. BrewDog in 2018 entered into an agreement with US brewing company “Scofflaw” to launch Scofflaw’s products into the UK market. Frank PR was engaged by Scofflaw to promote this relationship. Frank PR in September 2018, issued a press release, offering free beer to UK Trump supporters.

The press release did not sit well with BrewDog’s ethos and was not received well by BrewDog’s customer base. Users took to social media platforms, calling for consumers to boycott both the brewery company’s products, but also its crowdfunding investment scheme “Punk Equity”. In order to protect their brand, Brewdog acted quickly and cancelled the events, announcing this on Twitter approximately an hour after the original press release and that it intended to send “all the Scofflaw beer back to bars in the US”.

The dispute in the public eye and in the papers focused on BrewDog and Scofflaw, Frank PR was only mentioned in the backdrop. However, as Frank PR had been the entity that had published the statement, without the knowledge of Scofflaw, BrewDog on 4 July 2019 issued proceedings for defamation and negligent misstatement against them.

A preliminary trial on meaning struck the claim out almost two years after the controversial press release, but only after two years of legal work and rancour.

This was likely a costly, time consuming process, for something that could have been avoided, had proper procedures for sign off for press releases and reputational due diligence been carried out. In the Regus case approval of press statements kept the PR agency out of the proceedings, as a party at least. Without it, the risk for agencies only increases.

Whilst a more contentious argument and spat between businesses is played out in the papers, another legal battle concerning the PR firm played out in the background. In your day to day business, by publishing statements, PR firms run the risk of attracting liability for defamation and other similar torts.

To find out more about essential law for PR and communications – including their own liability as a publisher for content they publish – join us on 16 March 2021 for a free training session and Q&A. Sign up now.