Company responses and allegations are one of the most common issues that arise in the United States. The legal system in the United States is renowned for its speedy action and high standards of fair play. As such, company responses and allegations can be highly complicated and time consuming. The legal system is also renowned for its reluctance to entertain reasonable requests for clarification on matters where there may be reasonable doubt as to their credibility. As such, company responses and allegations often drag on for long periods of time before they are resolved.
A company’s failure to respond to a complaint can be attributed to negligence or the lack of awareness of the rights and responsibilities surrounding the production of a product or service. In the case of company responses and accusations, company directors and officers who are responsible for industrial policies, practices, and safety regulations must take immediate steps to remedy the situation. This can include ordering an independent investigation to determine the accuracy of the claims being raised. An independent investigation can help ensure that all aspects of the complaint are adequately addressed to remove any possibility of dispute resolution.
There are two main channels through which company responses and allegations can be communicated to the wider public. They can be communicated by company directors and officers directly, through their company response centre, or via a medium such as civil society reports transmitted across the internet. In the case of company responses and allegations communicated by the company directors and officers themselves, the first priority should always be to ensure that all aspects of the complaint have been properly addressed. The company response centre will then determine whether the complaint was justified and whether action should be taken against the alleged offender. Where the complaint has been successfully substantiated, the offender will be informed of their liability and consequences should they choose to challenge the allegations.
Where company responses and allegations are not properly addressed, the next step will be to look at the options open to the company. Where company responses and allegations are not sufficiently investigated and where complainants feel that no further action has been taken, there are two possible routes to pursue. The first route is to bring the matter to the attention of the United Nations Committee on Economic Co-operation and Development (UN COPEC) and other international human rights bodies. The second route would be to bring the matter to the International Association of Justice and Anti-Discrimination (IADC) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Both of these options are fraught with problems. For the company responses and allegations that emerge from internal or external investigation can potentially undermine corporate reputation and put jobs at risk. Internal investigations can also take years to conclude and cost millions of dollars. And, even if investigations do not identify the right people to answer questions, companies could still end up having to go through years of costly international litigation and paying potentially billions of dollars in damages.
And even where company responses and civil society reports provide a clear sense of the scope of company responses and civil society abuses, there is no sure way of knowing what measures will work best to resolve any particular case. This is because it is rarely just one case that triggers company responses and legal or non-monetary penalties. Instead, it usually involves a combination of cases brought by different parties against the same company or organization. In most cases, the alleged wrongdoing takes place at one of many levels: at the top of management, at the base of the supply chain, or at one of the different levels of operations. As a result, it is usually necessary to conduct a wide range of investigations in order to fully identify all potential company responses and civil society abuses.
Another problem with conducting broader investigations is that it is usually expensive. While it may be possible to develop detailed information about individual company responses and civil society abuses by large corporations, it is often difficult to determine what, if any, corporation response rates would look like for smaller businesses. This is because smaller companies usually operate with a lower management level and a smaller staff. It is also sometimes difficult to measure smaller companies’ compliance practices in terms of their harassment policies.
In order to understand company responses and their subsequent effects on litigation, it is therefore important for lawyers and law-spouses to conduct even narrower searches and to focus on isolated incidents rather than generalized outcomes. In many ways, this approach can be seen as an extension of what has been called “negative publicity”. Negative publicity exists when a company’s reputation is damaged by widespread adverse public comments. These comments may come in the form of stories, blog posts, or comments on the internet.
