Emergency Preparedness & Business Continuity

Everyone is aware that Business is exposed to Risks. Much has been written about how to respond to an emergency, and that indeed it is important, but is a court of law going to be satisfied with that kind of response? Likely not.

In today's business environment, Disaster Recovery Plans are important, but Business Continuity Plans are everything! Disaster Recovery Plans are reactive and only help to minimize the loss after the event. A Business Continuity Plan is proactive and is designed to minimize the loss before the event occurs.

The legal issues concern: Negligence and Due Diligence.

There are legal and other ramifications if a Director or Senior Manager is negligent.

Negligence is a failure to do what a reasonably careful and reasonably prudent person would do in the given circumstances. The relation is such as to produce a risk of foreseeable harm to a Stakeholder, creating a duty of care, and the degree of care is not taken.

There is a duty to all the Stakeholders - employees, shareholders, investors, Regulators, and your Supply Chain, to keep the Business running!

The defence to a charge of negligence is Due Diligence; Due Diligence is simply doing what the 'reasonable man' would do; doing it right for all the stakeholders. It's all about good Corporate Governance and Best Practices.

You can't ELIMINATE risk, but you can at least MANAGE it. If you do not have an Emergency Preparedness program or Business Continuity Plan, please call us. With our alliance with the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (www.ccep.ca) we are able to assist and guide your organization to various experts in the field and provide guidance in developing procedures to assess the real risks and mitigate Directors and Officers liability in the event of a disruption, disaster, emergency, or pandemic caused by natural or man-made disasters.