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Global rules on foreign direct investment (FDI)
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
United Kingdom | Publication | April 2020
The COVID-19 outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, causing a significant impact on people’s lives, businesses and the wider economy.
Whilst a significant effort is underway globally to contain the virus, crises such as these can unfold unpredictably. Therefore as the situation develops, firms across all sectors are having to work rapidly to ensure that their business services can continue to operate, their staff (and places of work) remain safe and their customers remain properly and appropriately served.
Effective and successful management of crises such as these is directly related to how well prepared organizations are to respond, and should act as key operational resilience considerations for firms.
A robust crisis response plan and capability is key to minimizing the impact the crisis has on a business, its staff and its customers. Firms should have in place crisis management and business continuity plans as part of their operational resilience frameworks that consider a range of scenarios, including a health pandemic, which should help them respond.
Given the various unknowns at this early stage in respect of COVID-19 and its impact nationally and internationally, it’s important that firms create crisis response plans if they haven’t done so already:
It is possible that an outbreak such as this could touch all parts of an organisation. Therefore it is important to include relevant stakeholders from across the business – HR, communications, customer services, legal, compliance etc – headed by an appropriately senior individual to ensure it gets the profile it requires.
Consider the range of scenarios that could occur as a result of the crisis in the short, medium and longer term. These should be plausible, but severe in nature so as to prepare the organization for what could be a prolonged period of high stress. Various factors can influence this. Take for example, as we have seen in a number of areas of the UK already, the impact of school closures, which may seem insignificant at first glance. Some things to think about in respect of this example may include, but not be limited to:
As part of scenario planning, it’s important to establish accurate factual information from credible sources. In situations such as these, social media in particular can be awash with inaccurate information or speculation, which may be unhelpful and impair decision-making.
Undertake testing of your crisis response plan using the plausible, but severe scenarios that you have considered. Some of the key components of the response plan include the communication media that you intend to use to keep staff and other stakeholders appraised of your response to the crisis, systems stress testing and effective / safe management of sites from which you operate, be they head offices, operations hubs or branches.
As you conduct the testing, what do the results show you? To what extent do they highlight previously unforeseen weaknesses that need to be addressed promptly? Which stakeholders need to be involved in addressing these weaknesses and how do you satisfy yourself that once action has been taken, this resolves the situation?
All of these factors will serve to enhance your crisis response plan and overall preparedness.
In fast moving and unpredictable circumstances such as these, clear and timely communication to stakeholders is key. Staff, customers and regulators are all important stakeholders to keep updated about an organisation’s planned response in the run up to and throughout the period of crisis response:
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