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 Company: Edelman, Brussels, Belgium
Company Description: Edelman is the world's largest independent public relations firm, with 2,000 employees in 43 offices worldwide. Sitting at the heart of Europe, the Brussels’ office integrates public affairs and lobbying to the European institutions with corporate communications and strategic multi-regional project management.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Communications Campaign
Nomination Title: "Bunge: Combating Corporate Raiders in Ukraine" Crisis and issues management campaign.
1. Tell the story about this nominated communications program in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Bunge Ukraine was being targeted by local Ukrainian “corporate raiders”
seeking to illegally raid the company of its assets by abusing the country’s
weak legal system. Raiders have been targeting local firms for a number of
years, but Bunge, a global agribusiness and food company, was one of the first
major multinational targets. Tactics used by the raiders include acquiring
minority shares and leveraging corrupt judicial officials to invalidate
legitimately held shares, thus taking a controlling stake in the company and
ultimately raiding it of its financial and physical assets. The Ukrainian
Government did not acknowledge that raiders’ attacks were a problem in Ukraine
and the issue was seen as taboo in government circles. Media coverage of the
issue was minimal. The campaign sought to leverage pressure on the Ukrainian
Government to take action via an integrated programme of political and media
outreach at EU and international level.
The main accomplishments consisted of:
• Leveraging key political events such as the visit of Prime Minister
Yanukovich to Brussels, and the EU-Ukraine Summit, where the President of the
European Commission raised the issue, following our meetings with Commission
staff;
• Inspiring discussions of the issue at EU-Ukraine Parliamentary
Cooperation Committee, with the participation of MEPs and Ukrainian Government
representatives, following our meetings with MEPs;
• Mobilising other companies targeted by raiders in Ukraine to speak
out, and presenting a common front to the media representatives to encourage
coverage of the issue in key international and Ukrainian media;
• Inspiring the EBRD to raise its concerns about Bunge’s case with MEPs
and the media;
• Conveying a positive message: “the Government is not the problem, it
is the solution” or “we’re not trying to create obstacles to WTO accession, as
WTO is the remedy”.
The main obstacle overcome was the initial inaction of the Ukrainian
Government in combating the situation. However, as can be seen, their view
changed due to our integrated political and media campaign.
Edelman met the objective of compelling the Government of Ukraine to take
action and the following outcomes were achieved:
• The Government of Ukraine has set up a Special Commission on raiders’
attacks to examine the problem – even though it had failed to recognize the
problem of raiders before the campaign;
• In December 2006, the Government of Ukraine passed the first ‘anti-
raiders’ law which will limit the capacity of raiders to bring spurious claims
using corrupt judges;
• At WTO level, the issue has been raised in the working party on the
accession of Ukraine, and some Member States will call for satisfactory
resolution of this issue before Ukraine accedes to the WTO.
The campaign led to significant articles in the top tier international
publications Financial Times, European Voice and the newswire Dow Jones over
the period of the Prime Minister’s visit to Brussels and the EU-Ukraine
Summit. The fact that international press reported led to a huge increase in
reporting within Ukraine, leading us to discover at first hand the power
international media has over national news markets. In Ukraine, the campaign
generated over 300 articles and references on television and websites which
made specific mention of Bunge’s case, and at least 600 further articles
mentioned the raiders issue more broadly, leading the influential Ukrainian
newspaper Zerkalo-Nedali to describe raiders’ attacks as the most significant
issue affecting the investment climate in 2006.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=Economy+rejuvenation+&y=3&aje=true&x=23&id=061027008401
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that carried out this nominated communications program:
Samantha Seewoosurrun joined Edelman in July 2005, bringing her first-hand
experience of the European Parliament to the expanding Public Affairs team.
Samantha was previously a Senior Consultant at Citigate Public Affairs in
Brussels.
She is providing strategic counsel and lobbying advice to a number of clients
facing corruption problems in Eastern Europe, using a campaign approach to
achieve results. Her clients have included the Japanese bank Nomura, the
agribusiness firm Bunge and Dundee Precious Metals Inc.
She has advised clients in areas including anti-money laundering policy,
financial services and data protection, competition policy, social policy and
consumer policy.
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