![Reputational risk from $1.5 Trillion ESG debt. Bankers servicing one of the world’s biggest ESG debt markets are now actively seeking legal protections to guard against the potential greenwashing allegations that may be ahead. […] Lawyers advising SLL bankers say the reputational risks associated with mislabeling such products are now too big to ignore.](https://steelcityre.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/20231107-Steel-City-Re.jpg)
Reputational risk from $1.5 Trillion ESG debt. Bankers servicing one of the world’s biggest ESG debt markets are now actively seeking legal protections to guard against the potential greenwashing allegations that may be ahead. […] Lawyers advising SLL bankers say the reputational risks associated with mislabeling such products are now too big to ignore.
![Mitigate value-destroying legal risk. For Fox, Kossovsky said. “This new reputation at FOX Corporation, if it [is] indeed forming, is or will be value-destroying.”](https://steelcityre.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/20231016b-Steel-City-Re.jpg)
Fox experienced a surge in reputational risk in the summer of 2021, according to reputational risk insurance provider Steel City Re’s resilience monitor. […] “Reputation risk is usually triggered by missed expectations,” Kossovsky said. “Arguably, stakeholders expected that Rupert Murdoch would once again pull the organization back from the brink after an ethically questionable strategy went sour. They’ve been disappointed.”
In the past six months, more than $130 billion in shareholder value was lost by 39 banks due to reputational risk—the risk of unmet stakeholder expectations resulting in incinerated business value–flawed stakeholder intelligence.
CEO’s Conviction SEC Charges. “Boards should demand… intelligence on stakeholder expectations,” said Kossovsky.
Tech companies changed policies. “(S)parking outsized emotional reactions, Kossovsky said,…are a hallmark of matters carrying serious reputational risks.”
“Lightning does strike,” (Kossovsky) said, but firms that can demonstrate that they have developed effective governance systems and implemented thoughtful risk management experience a much different impact: “That’s where enterprise risk management creates value.”
Reputation insurer Steel City Re is offering boards of directors access to its proprietary reputation volatility metrics (RVM) reports as a standalone product in response to recent bank crises. Reputation value volatility case studies. “Volatility can indicate shifting stakeholder expectations preceding stock price collapses.”
“For the first time since its landmark Caremark decision, the Delaware Chancery Court has allowed a breach of oversight claim to proceed against a corporate officer when it declined to dismiss claims brought by stockholders against David Fairhurst, McDonald’s former head of human resources…”.[kos] The bottom line is that law and society are expecting better management and oversight—a touch of common sense many would say—and that disappointment (read, shift in expectations leading to anger and disappointment, aka, reputation crisis) is playing out in the courts….Companies and boards need a solid, universally applicable management and oversight process that is forward-looking to manage risk strategically. The quality of that process needs to be proactively authenticated with insurance. Compliance-focused controls, which by design are backward looking—and the audits that authenticate them—are necessary but with the evolving expectations of society, apparently no longer sufficient.
Mission critical risk denial can be costly. A holiday flight cancellation fiasco by Southwest Airlines crushed the company’s market capitalization and caused the company to take an $800 million dollar write-down for Q4 and record losses three times greater than analysts had expected. Equity returns 42 days into the crisis show Southwest trailing the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index by 18.4%. Had it merely kept pace with that index, Southwest’s market cap would have been more than $3.3 billion higher.
All risk is connected. As in Dirk Gently’s world, everything in the risk world is now connected, but without the humor of Douglas Adams. The consequences of operational perils between and among employees—the sorts of things that might have triggered coverage with Employment Practice Liability insurance, is now a matter for derivative litigation and the SEC.