BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

In a move aimed at reassuring investors that fairness is being restored to the financial marketplace, President Obama last week announced that he is requesting a 12 percent increase in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) FY2011 budget. If enacted, the president’s request would infuse more than 100 new enforcement staffers into the SEC as it continues to take on a rapidly growing case load. Since Chairman Mary Schapiro took the helm of the embattled agency ... READ MORE

President John F. Kennedy once said that “the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” While this is indeed sage advice, it is unfortunately seldom followed by legislators and regulators who are often too preoccupied with investigating the problems of the past to focus their attention on the dangers that lurk ahead. At the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), however, Chairman Mary Schapiro is seeking to change that dynamic. The Division of Risk, ... READ MORE

Left-leaning voices are calling it the Supreme Court’s most damaging ruling since 1857’s Dred Scott decision. Those on the right are cheering it as a repeal of “one of the worst abridgments of the First Amendment since the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.” But no matter what you think of the High Court’s recent move to repeal limits on corporate spending on political campaigns, it’s clear that the 2010 election cycle is shaping ... READ MORE

Last week, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it has voted to initiate an investigation into whether or not Apple Computer products such as the wildly popular iPhone and Macbook illegally infringe upon patents held by Nokia. It’s just the latest development in a dispute that has raged since Nokia filed a complaint in October alleging that Apple broke U.S. intellectual property laws by using ten patent-protected technologies in just about every ... READ MORE

During last week’s State of the Union Address, President Obama signaled the dawn of a new age for nuclear power. “To create more of these clean energy jobs,” the President said, “we need more production, more efficiency, and more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” As I wrote in a column that was just published on TheStreet.com, the nuclear power industry has come a long ... READ MORE

Pundits across the country continue to ask how the Democratic Party, which was riding so high less than a year-and-a-half ago, could have fallen far enough to lose the late Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate Seat. Some say it was voters’ reactions to health care reform. Others say it was unemployment. But according to data released earlier this month by Zogby International, it’s likely that the outcome had less to do with policy than how policy ... READ MORE

The Justice Department's latest anti-corruption efforts aimed at business executives who bribe foreign officials make it clear that the DOJ is deadly serious about taking Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigations to a new and unprecedented level. In fact, the government is now using undercover agents specifically to strike fear into the hearts of those contemplating an illegal payment and is making it much more difficult for bad actors to argue that it is “business as usual” ... READ MORE

With the future of healthcare reform still uncertain, unemployment hovering around 10 percent, and terrorism concerns back on the front pages, there is a growing perception that the Obama Administration is making little progress on national priorities. But as is often the case in Washington D.C., perception and reality are not one and the same. According to a study recently released by Congressional Quarterly, no President has had greater success on Capitol Hill than Barack Obama ... READ MORE

According to a report released last week by the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, the U.S. Justice Department’s (DOJ) intensified focus on antitrust matters over the last decade is showing no signs of slowing down. The DOJ collected more than $1 billion in criminal antitrust fines in Fiscal Year 2009 and $229 million in the first quarter of FY2010. In fact, these numbers don’t just represent the continuation of a trend we’ve seen ... READ MORE

With the news that Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) will not seek a sixth term in the U.S. Senate, the financial services industry now has good – but rapidly expiring – opportunity to take a greater hand in the expected regulatory overhaul of their own industry. For some time, Sen. Dodd, who serves as the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has been a proponent of far-reaching reforms including executive compensation limits, the creation of a Consumer ... READ MORE