SITUATIONA non-profit hospital located in a small town was being sued for alleged antitrust violations after it failed to grant work privileges to an orthopedic surgeon employed by an independent physicians group (IPG).The hospital's reasons for denying privileges were complicated and difficult to explain in short 15 second sound-bites.  Conversely, the IPG's messages were easy to understand and...

SITUATIONA real estate development company was accused by residents of a building it was tearing down - to make room for a major new development - that the company was racist and disregarding the needs of lower income residents.The disaffected residents had staged a picket in front of the CEO's home and threatened more demonstrations there.  They had also organized large-scale demonstrations...

A large regional bank in the Midwest was sued by a female employee and the EEOC for sexual discrimination, alleging that the bank unfairly failed to promote the woman and that her compensation was lower than her male peers’.  While the bank felt the allegations of the suit were groundless, bad publicity about the suit clearly threatened to damage the bank’s reputation and management was rightly...

A prominent law firm faced a discrimination lawsuit and EEOC complaint from a rogue, disgruntled former employee who slandered the firm in opinion pieces and on the blogosphere.  The firm turned to HBC for its reputation monitoring and crisis communications services.  Monitoring key news outlets, blogs (including the attorney's blog) and web sources, HBC provided real-time updates reporting on...

When a national economic consulting firm learned that one of its affiliated experts was going to be included in a less-than-flattering feature in a major U.S. business publication, the firm sought out the reputation monitoring and management services of HBC.  Tracking the publication’s website and related blogs, HBC kept the client apprised of developments and worked closely with the firm’s...