UK firm Bell Pottinger’s membership of the Public Relations and Communications Association has been terminated for bringing the industry into disrepute following an investigation into the work it did for Gupta-owned Oakbay Investments.
The trade association for the UK public relations sector said this was its "most serious sanction" and meant Bell Pottinger would not be eligible to reapply for membership of the regulator for five years.
This comes a day after the findings of a review of Bell Pottinger’s work for Oakbay, done by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, that material created for an economic-emancipation campaign was "potentially racially divisive and/or potentially offensive". The findings were released on Monday, a day after Bell Pottinger CEO James Henderson resigned.
Bell Pottinger has been accused of fuelling racial tension in SA to promote a campaign of economic emancipation in the country, known as "white monopoly capital", which has been seen as an attempt to divert attention from allegations of state capture involving the Gupta family.
The DA lodged a complaint against Bell Pottinger with the Public Relations and Communications Association in July.
The association said its professional-practices committee was unanimous in its view that the professional charter and codes of conduct had been breached. Its recommendation that Bell Pottinger’s membership be terminated was approved unanimously by its board.
The regulator had never before passed down such a damning indictment of an agency’s behaviour, said Francis Ingham, the association’s director-general. "Bell Pottinger has brought the PR [public relations] and communications industry into disrepute with its actions and it has received the harshest possible sanctions," he said.
The Herbert Smith Freehills review showed that despite the Bell Pottinger Oakbay account team having used the term "white monopoly capital" during its campaign, there was no evidence that it had invented the term. However, there was evidence that the account team had used tactics that arguably breached ethical principles.
"Certain material that we have seen that was created for the campaign was negative or targeted towards wealthy white South African individuals or corporates and/or was potentially racially divisive and/or potentially offensive and was created in breach of relevant ethical principles," the review stated.
The law firm found that senior management at Bell Pottinger was not aware of the details of the economic emancipation campaign.
However, Herbert Smith Freehills said it should have known it was "at risk of causing offence, including on grounds of race".
with Kyle Cowan
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