November 2017 was a hectic month for Navigate Response, Helix PR’s marine casualty response arm, where our colleagues in Singapore, Edward Ion, Andrew Leahy and Elizabeth Tai were up in Hong Kong for a high profile seminar targeted at shipowners, ship managers and senior management in the maritime industry.
The half day seminar was held in conjunction with our partners Reed Smith, the leading international law firm and admiralty practice and took place at the Foreign Correspondents Club in HK on November 16.
Titled “Proaction vs Reaction: navigating the first 48 hours of a maritime casualty”, the seminar addressed the wide range of emerging challenges that shipping casualties create in today’s hyper-fast digitally driven environment. Speakers from Reed Smith and Navigate Response discuss the methods deployed to ensure that reputational risks and litigation risks associated with a marine casualty are dealt with as best as possible.
A packed house of more than 70 shipping professionals heard six excellent presentations from senior Reed Smith shipping lawyers as well as papers from Navigate’s chief operating officer in London, Dustin Eno and Operations Manager for Asia, Andrew Leahy.
Dustin gave a well-received talk on shipping’s reputation in relation to industry vetting procedures and Andrew’s paper focused on some high-profile casualties the group has worked on this year and some of the learning lessons which have arisen.
The talks were followed by a lively question and answer session and there were a number of contributions from attendees relating to how the media perceives shipping and how social media can be managed in a crisis situation.
The seminar was attended by many Hong Kong-based Navigate Response clients including some high-profile ship managers and owners.
Edward Ion, Navigate Response Asia director, said: “Navigate Response was delighted to work with Reed Smith on this seminar as we were able to highlight the fact that expert media advisory for owners with a marine casualty situation goes hand in hand with expert legal advice.
“The two go together and in many ways managing a casualty is about how things are communicated.
“Hong Kong is one of the great maritime centres and the market’s interest in professional media advisory there is real and it is needed. Our HK client list will grow further in 2018.”
