The Battle of Trafigura: A PR Fiasco

To get the obvious out of the way first, the attempt by the law firm Carter-Ruck to prevent The Guardian informing the British people of proceedings in the British Parliament was both disgraceful and counter-productive. And the resulting furor--including a storm on Twitter--surely demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that any attempt to stifle coverage in the social media age will have precisely the opposite effect.

The background, of course, is fascinating. The law firm in questions was acting on behalf of oil company Trafigura (an enterprise that makes ExxonMobil look like Ben & Jerry's), which has been trying to buy off the victims of its toxic dumping off the coast of Africa and which will--if Greenpeace has its way and the British justice system comes to its senses--soon be facing prosecution for manslaughter.

But since this is a public relations blog, let's focus for a second on the PR debacle that resulting from the attempted gagging order. The Guardian appears to have be silenced for about 12 hours, before Carter Ruck backed down. The story that everyone was trying to suppress, meanwhile, has become one of the biggest topics of discussion in social media, with outrage over the original scandal amplified and exaggerated by fury over the cover-up.

None of this was remotely unpredictable. Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the modern media landscape must surely have known that the attempt to silence The Guardian would mean bigger, nastier headlines.

So the obvious question is: where were the PR people in all this? There are three--and only three--possible answers:

1. Trafigura didn't bother to consult with its PR people--the company saw this as a legal issue. If that's the case, Trafigura management are morons. And its legal advisors are morons for not thinking about the possible PR consequences of their decisions. And its PR people must still take some responsibility because they have clearly failed to convince management that they have any kind of grown-up role to play.

2. Trafigura consulted its PR people and they agreed with the lawyers this was a jolly good strategy. If that's the case, Trafigura management are morons, the lawyers are morons and the PR people are incompetent morons.

3. Trafigura consulted its PR people and the PR people told the company that it was making a huge mistake. The company listened patiently, and then decided to do what its lawyers said it should do, ignoring the sound advice of the PR people. If that's the case, Trafigura management and morons, its lawyers are morons, and its PR people--unless they resigned en masse--has a serious self-respect deficit.

Any way you look at this, no one comes out of it covered in glory.