Regulatory
Under the worst circumstances…the regulators are simply out for blood. They’ve got you set up for a perp walk and, whatever the risks of an aggressive counter-attack, inaction is worse – the equivalent of nolo contendere. In such situations, flattery will get you nowhere. The regulators certainly won’t listen to your joint communications proposals. And third-party supporters won’t impress them unless it’s a politician who happens to have assigned power over the agency.
If the government’s game is to use you as a symbol for larger iniquitous trends, the best response is to beat the government at its own game by pointing to the even larger, even more iniquitous trends inherent in its actions. Those trends, which comprise the key messages of the counter-offensive, have the added advantage of speaking to issues that go far beyond the specific problems that incited the interest of the regulators in the first place. They also inspire third-party support from every imaginable quarter: politicians, other businesses, academics, and even NGOs.
The counter-offensive thus diverts attention from the alleged corporate misdeeds by focusing on something far more important. For example:
- The government’s overreaching is one more example of the ill effects of Enron and the other corporate scandals. The worst legacy of those scandals is that they have now green-lighted the government to do nearly anything it wants to do.
- A government out of control is far more dangerous than any of the private sector problems that it is investigating. It’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences.
- Have the regulators reneged on any agreements? If so, they have stomped on a fundamental American value – namely, keeping one’s word.
- From a practical standpoint, the government’s ill-advised zeal muddies its relationships with other businesses with which they are negotiating, or from which they are seeking help. In so doing, they are making themselves less effective as regulators.
- Foreign companies are watching. If the regulators are not just aggressive but unreasonable, they are sending a negative message to global investors and thereby jeopardizing American jobs.
- Foreign companies are watching. For foreign businesses that are themselves facing the brunt of overzealous U.S. regulators, the sword cuts two ways. If American officials can treat a foreign company unreasonably, why can’t foreign officials do the same to an American corporation?
Such a counter-offensive draws on both moral/political principles and economic self-interest, thus appealing to the most diverse possible audiences. Importantly, it is a true offense in the sense that it’s the company and not its adversary that is setting the agenda and defining the content of the debate.
That’s what an offense is supposed to do.
Stop the Presses
