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what to do with regulatory authorities and whether to notify the government, she says. In addition to working with its communications people on getting the appropriate message out, she says in-house lawyers should ensure companies set up a call centre that consumers can contact to get information or confirm whether they have the precise model that is being recalled. She says the gold standard of how to handle a product re- call was set by Johnson & Johnson back in 1982 when seven people in Chicago died after taking Extra Strength Tylenol cap- sules which had been laced with potassium cyanide. She says the company was frank and forthright and not equivocating about the extent of the danger. "You've got to put all of your cards on the table to the extent you know them. You can't say, 'no comment,'" she says, noting that Johnson & Johnson originally announced the recall by sending Boy Scouts door to door. "Some analysts said Johnson & Johnson would never be able to market a product under that brand name again. I think that's a really telling story," she says. Pliszka says in-house counsel are playing increasingly impor- tant and multi-faceted roles as the issue of product defects is popping up on the radar screens of both consumers and regula- tors with alarming regularity. Due to ever-increasing globaliza- tion, defects and recalls even in the most remote of markets are likely to "ricochet" around the world, he says. As well, with offshore manufacturing on a steady incline as firms seek to reduce their labour costs, maintaining quality con- trol processes will be increasingly difficult, he says, a develop- ment that could lead to an increase in defective products. perspective to have the recall and news release done voluntarily and co-operatively from a PR and reputation point of view." — BRUCE BOWMAN, GENERAL COUNSEL, CANADA SAFEWAY LIMITED Canadian Legal Newswire A weekly electronic bulletin of Canadian legal news from the publishers of & www.canadianlawyermag.com w C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE FEBRU AR Y 2008 11 "Timing is everything on a recall. It's desirable from the retailer's SUBSCRIBE NOW now up at Sign