Practice Areas

Reputational challenges can strike any business at any time and the consequences of unsuccessfully dealing with these challenges can be severe and can potentially lead to the total and irreversible destruction of the business’ value. When a reputational crisis does strike management will very often be required to deal with critical reputational issues of which they have no prior experience. We have helped many of our clients prepare for and successfully navigate these challenges and whatever the reputational challenge our clients face we have the skills and experience to help.

The following are examples of our recent work:

• Acting for a major financial institution in connection with the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry
• Providing advice to various current and former executives of regulated financial institutions in connection with appearances at public hearings of Oireachtas Committees
• Advising numerous clients on litigation readiness techniques such as the development and implementation of systems for the preservation and subsequent identification, collation and reproduction of large volumes of sensitive confidential data
• Acting for a large professional services firm who suffered substantial financial loss as a result of the fraudulent activities of an employee of a firm engaged by our client to provide property services
• Advising various regulated financial service providers on inspections, investigations and enforcement actions by the Central Bank of Ireland
• Advising various public companies in connection with investigations by the Takeover Panel
• Advising various clients in connection with audits and actions by the Data Protection Commissioner
• Establishing and operating a highly confidential internal investigation into alleged criminal staff misconduct on behalf of a global software provider which involved the carrying out of sensitive interviews, the provision of advice in relation to disciplinary actions against senior employees and compliance with statutory law enforcement notification requirements
• Advising private clients in connection with two separate cartel investigations by the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (formerly the Competition Authority)
• Acting for various clients in relation to defamation proceedings
• Acting in the first case to consider the law in Ireland relating to privacy, which is regarded as a seminal decision.

• Brand and IP management
• Brand and IP exploitation
• Brand and IP protection
• IP and brand management and protection
• Enforcement matters
• Misappropriation misuse,
• Commercial and contentious matters.
• Employee and contractor theft of assets,
• Counterfeiting
• Infringing goods
• Commercial strategies

We recently advised a multinational clothing giant in relation to the seizure of a substantial quantity of infringing goods with a very significant commercial value. We worked with the company to consider offensive strategies to prevent the goods being released onto the Irish market, which would have resulted in a devastating impact on the reputation of the brand.

We were on hand immediately to develop and implement a legal strategy as soon as the company became aware of the existence of the infringing goods. Actions taken included opposing the third party’s pending trade mark application; using our client’s existing trade mark as the basis for a cease and desist letter; the issuing of proceedings for trade mark infringement, passing off and a High Court injunction; engaging private investigators to track down the location of the goods; and liaising with the relevant state authorities including the Chief State Solicitor’s Office and An Garda Síochána in relation to search and seizure orders.

Our depth of counterfeiting experience and our breadth of service offering including our dedicated IP litigation team and full trade mark practice, combined with our experience in liaising with authorities, assisted our client in acting quickly to protect its brand and to ensure that the goods were not released onto the market.