Trafigura Postscript

Claire Thompson, Waves PR.

A surge of outrage helped restore reason to British politics today.  I am grateful – and proud –  to live in a country where our views have been taken into account. Trying to prevent the media from printing information about a question being tabled in Parliament was reprehensible. Our anger should be directed at the court that allowed that one to happen.

I felt a little note by way of postscript was in order.

Firstly, there’s a great piece on RNW about the full story.

There is one other party to whom very little allusion has been made: Compagnie Tommy, a licensed independent contractor (on the Ivory Coast). The following is a statement made in May: statement by Trafigura. Apparently Trafigura is also taking action against them. Trafigura describes them as a reputable company ( but at the time of the incident, they had only been registered for a month).

There are all kinds of ifs, whats and maybes, of course, because if they had been contracted to dispose of one chemical, but were delivered something else, the problem goes back to within and higher up the chain. But if they were to blame for the spill, Trafigura has done little to help itself in PR terms. Passing the buck is never popular, but a full statement wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Trafigura’s PR company, Bell Pottinger, will having a very busy day.  I’m sure they’ll open a bottle after work to relax. Lets hope they spare a thought for the nameless people on the Ivory Coast, whilst they’re at it.

It will be interesting to see what Jack Straw’s response will be to the question if/when asked in Parliament.

And the traditional media, which is usually on the end of a good social media pasting on a regular basis, should take heart from the fact that the public stood behind them.

I hope they will have the courage to use social media for a mandate to go ahead and print when our our politicians and legal system are misbehaving in future. And that someone will find the energy to use the attention to improve the lot of the real victims of this accident.

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