Brand and Reputation Protection
Download a PDF of the full article - by Rachel Atkins
Most reputation management issues have pertained to print, but this is changing, especially with the Internet and the advent of blogs.
Some of the most successful brands have been built on the back of very successful entrepreneurs - for example, Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One, Richard Branson and the Virgin Group of companies and Stelios and the EasyGroup. Others are more closely connected to corporations, for example British Airways, the London Stock Exchange, and magic circle professional firms.
The legal protection of that brand when building up the entity will be important - control of intellectual property rights, confidentiality agreements, registration of domain names, etc - but that is not what this piece is about. I will consider brand protection form the media side - the articles in the press, the whispering campaigns that become public or the investigations by TV shows such as the UK's Dispatches program on Channel 4. This will not, you will no doubt be glad to learn, be a law paper, rather an insight (from a practical point of view) of where lawyers, might get involved and how they might help you.....[for full article
download the PDF].
This article first appeared in Shattered magazine, Nov/Dec 2006. Vol.1. Issue 4.