Bell Pottinger ‘in breach’ of ethical principles – review

The review, commissioned by Bell Pottinger as an independent audit, is complete, but not yet published. This review, done by Herbert Smith Freehills, elaborates on the charge that Bell Pottinger allegedly orchestrated a campaign in South Africa, the work that was done (and if it breached the PR firm’s ethical principles) and identifies these transgressions.

A three-page summary of the findings suggests Bell Pottinger’s work included material “that was negative or targeted towards wealthy white South African individuals or corporates and/or was potentially racially divisive and/or potentially offensive and was created in breach of relevant ethical principles”.

Under the header, ‘The Economic Emancipation campaign’, Herbert Freehills Smith confirms they “have not seen any evidence to suggest that, as has been alleged, the BP account team used or instructed others to use so-called Twitterbots” as a tactic to push their message.

They could also not find evidence that the PR firm coined the term “white monopoly capital”, but rather the term had been in use for some time – even before the Bell Pottinger team started to work with Oakbay.

Herbert Freehills Smith did find that the Bell Pottinger team used “other tactics in relation to the economic emancipation campaign which arguably breached the relevant ethical principles”.

The PR firm’s senior management was also taken to task in the summary. To quote the report: “Members of senior management should have taken care to ensure that the Bell Pottinger account team was structured appropriately for such a sensitive mandate.”

This comes after Bell Pottinger’s James Henderson stepped down from his position as CEO at the weekend. He has been CEO of Bell Pottinger since 2012, and owns 37% of the firm with his fiancée, Heather Kerzner.

The findings of the Herbert Smith Freehills LLP audit on #BellPottinger's Gupta family account pic.twitter.com/gGBfLAGZ3A

— Phumzile Van Damme (@zilevandamme) September 4, 2017

The Democratic Alliance released a statement today saying the report stated “nothing new”.

The DA’s statement reads: “The DA will request that Bell Pottinger provides the 45 000 documents that were the subject of HFS review, for our own review on behalf of the South African public.”