Under significant time pressure, Venable Blue drove strategic remediation efforts that enabled a technology company to bring its main product into compliance and avoid significant regulatory fines.
After the passage of a law pushed a major technology company’s main product out of compliance, Venable Blue was brought in to advise regarding product changes and help bring the company into compliance. In under two weeks, the Venable Blue team broke down silos within the client’s internal teams, bringing together engineering, communications, legal, and policy teams. By developing and proposing strategic product remediation efforts, Venable Blue not only helped the client become compliant, but also helped prevent a massive fine and the loss of trust between the client and the regulator.
The Issue: Non-compliance threatens a company’s reputation and bottom line.
The client, a multinational technology company, was faced with possible non-compliance when one of the countries where the company operated passed legislation that would make a key consumer-facing product out of compliance with the laws of that country. Given the sensitivity of the issue, the client was provided a short time frame within which to amend its products to ensure compliance. Having faced previous challenges with the regulator, and acknowledging that non-compliance could result in hefty fines and degradation in public trust, the client sought Venable Blue’s assistance and advice on how to work with and respond to regulators, while identifying key product changes. With a history of over 100 engagements working with regulators, our team was equipped to provide the client with the experience and insights they needed to navigate this time-sensitive task.
Venable Blue Response
The client was already in a time crunch when Venable Blue was brought in. The Venable Blue team promptly identified the client team that owned the root cause of the issue, and brought together legal, policy, and product teams to create a common comprehension of the law in question, the regulator’s sensitivities around it, the ramifications of non-compliance, and potential product fixes.
With a singular narrative developed, we then worked with the product teams to evaluate solutions that would enable compliance. As the client had to not only build technical solutions but also communicate the ramifications to non-technical partners (e.g., internal legal and policy teams and the external regulator), Venable Blue served as the intermediary. In articulating engineering concepts to non-technical stakeholders, our team helped all stakeholders assess the viability of proposed technical solutions.
Leveraging our experience in product management, Venable Blue worked closely with the client’s engineering teams to develop effective solutions. From conducting solution testing with outside counsel to advising on product refinements, our analysts balanced speed with accuracy. And, while managing the product space, Venable Blue worked closely with regional legal teams, helping them craft responses to the regulatory inquiry.
The Outcome
Despite tight timelines and the need for multiple product and feature changes, Venable Blue’s interventions worked. Within a two-week time frame, the client made strides in applying three necessary product changes, satisfying the requests of the regulator, and preventing additional queries or fines.
To assist the client in coming out of this experience better equipped, we also led a retrospective exercise to help the client teams understand the root causes, solutions, and mechanisms by which future similar incidents could be prevented. In helping the client unpack key issues, such as those around communication pathways between the legal, engineering, and communications teams, Venable Blue guided the client to improve structures for future resilience.
How We Can Help You
When your organization faces a time-sensitive regulatory inquiry, Venable Blue can help turn a potential crisis into a positive opportunity. Through achieving alignment among internal stakeholders on how and when to respond, we work to mitigate potential erosion of public trust, reduce the risk of further regulatory inquiries, and bring a swift resolution. With experience in incident response in tech, policy, and government affairs, our team is prepared to help. Learn more here.