EVENT: Legal Risks and Mitigation of TRM

On Tuesday afternoon, we were joined by PwC and leading law firms Peters & Peters, Dartevelle Dubest Bellanca & Associés (DDB&A), and Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC (MagLaw) to deliver a series of seminars on the legal risks and mitigation in business travel.

The event, held at London’s prestigious Inner Temple, aimed to educate senior corporate travel and risk professionals, C-suite executives, and legal professionals in large corporates, on the implications of ISO 31030 and how this can influence travel risk management.

Navigating the landscape

Lee Whiteing offered a brief overview of the business travel landscape – an industry that has witnessed turmoil since 2020 due to the pandemic, civil unrest and natural disasters, among others. “At the GBTA Europe conference last week, it was projected that across all businesses, the industry will be at 65 percent of 2019 volumes by the end of 2022 but will not hit 100 percent until mid-2026.”

This was followed by a swift summary of ISO 31030 from Bob Quick, who outlined some of the recent developments of the standard since its launch in 2021. As we head into 2023, awareness of ISO 31030 is higher, and corporations are beginning to implement guidance into TRM policies. Ignoring the guidance comes with risks, including potential legal implications.

Using ISO 31030 to your advantage

Andrew Wallis and Paul Johnson, Of Counsel at Peters & Peters, explored how ISOs have influenced criminal legal cases in UK law and outlined instances where corporations failed to meet their duty of care, resulting in legal liability for organisations.

MagLaw’s Benjamin Fischer led a session on the US legal perspective: how ISO 31030 is relevant to to the Department of Justice Investigations. The US court will consider various elements including the nature and seriousness of an offense, the pervasiveness of wrongdoing within the corporation and the corporation’s history of similar misconduct.

DDB&A’s Fabrice Dubest and Frédéric Bellanca discussed how ISO 31030 could play a role in French law. Fabrice noted a difference between how the UK and French handle criminal manslaughter law: “the notion of gross negligence that you consider safe in the UK is completely irrelevant when it comes to France”.

Putting the standard into practice

How can companies use ISO 31030 to their advantage? Laetitia Piroddi, Travel Risk and Security Manager at PwC, shared how the company has incorporated guidance into its policies and procedures, and the benefits that came with meeting best practice.

To close off the seminars, Brian Moore shared his tips for mitigating risks. “Find the time to think about the reasonably foreseeable risks and do some desktop exercising to practice what could happen. Consider what your capabilities are and sit down with your team to consider what could go wrong and how to address it. If you find the time to do that, it will pay you back 10-fold if the real scenarios crop up.”

Download the papers from Peters & Peters, MagLaw, and DDB&A here: http://bit.ly/3AeRvZY