Category Archives: Disaster Recovery

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Authorities Examine Hotel Owner’s Request for Help Before Italian Avalanche

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As the search for survivors at an Italian hotel buried during an avalanche continues, an investigation has been launched into a distress call and emails for help by the hotel’s owner. Triggered by a series of earthquakes, the avalanche claimed the lives of at least 14 people, with 15 still missing, according to reports. A staff of eight and 20 guests were reported to have been at the hotel at the time.

Bruno Di Tommaso, owner of hotel Rigopiano, a popular ski resort, reportedly sent an email asking for help from authorities in the nearby town of Pescara.

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“The phones are out of service. Customers are terrified by the earthquakes and have decided to stay outdoors. We tried to do everything possible to calm them but, unable to leave because of blocked roads, they are willing to spend the night in the car,” his email read.

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“With our shovels we were able to clean the driveway, from the gate to the SS42 (state road). Aware of the general difficulties, we ask you to intervene.”

The UK’s Telegraph reported that prosecutors in Pescara have opened an investigation into the situation, questioning why there was no attempt to evacuate the hotel. Investigators looking into possible manslaughter charges are examining Di Tommaso’s email.

According to the Telegraph:

Authorities had reportedly promised to send a snow plow to clear the road to the hotel on Wednesday afternoon, but its arrival was constantly postponed and in the end it did not turn up at all, amid reports that some snow plow in the region were out of service while others had been dispatched to other emergencies.

There have already been claims that when the alarm was first raised, by a man who survived the avalanche by luck because he was collecting medicine from his car, his pleas for help were initially rebuffed by emergency services.

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The quakes struck near Amatrice, one of the towns destroyed in August by an earthquake that left almost 300 people dead and thousands homeless.

Business Interruption Seen as Top Risk Globally

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A survey of more than 1,200 risk managers and corporate insurance experts in over 50 countries identified business interruption as the top concern for 2017. According to the sixth annual Allianz Risk Barometer of top business risks, this is the fifth successive year that business interruption has been seen as the biggest risk.
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“Companies worldwide are bracing for a year of uncertainty,” Chris Fischer Hirs, CEO of AGCS said in a statement. “They are concerned about rather unpredictable changes in the legal, geopolitical and market environment around the world. A range of new risks are emerging beyond the perennial perils of fire and natural catastrophes and require re-thinking of current monitoring and risk management tools.”

While natural disasters and fires are what businesses fear most, non-damage events such as a cyber incident, terrorism or political violence resulting in denial of access are moving higher up on the scale, according to the report. These types of incidents can cause large loss of income to companies, without actual physical loss.

The second concern, market developments, could result from stagnant markets or M&As, or from digitalization and use of new technologies.

Cyberrisk, third on the list of perils, has jumped up from 15th place in just four years. Cyber was identified as the second concern in the United States and Europe.

According to Allianz:

The results indicate that cyber risk occupies a significant portion of a company’s exposure map. The risk now goes far and beyond the issue of privacy and data breaches. A single incident, be it a technical glitch, human error or an attack, can lead to severe business interruption, loss of market share and cause reputational damage. Of the top 10 global risks in the 2017 Allianz Risk Barometer, a cyber incident could be a potential root cause or trigger for 50% of them. In addition, the toughening of data protection regulation regimes around the world is also contributing to this risk being at the forefront of risk managers’ minds, as penalties for non-compliance are increasingly severe.

Fourth on the list, natural catastrophes added up to $150 billion in total economic losses in 2016—with insured losses accounting for $42 billion of those losses—up from $28 billion in 2015, according to the report. Businesses also are more concerned about the impact of climate change and increasing weather volatility year-on-year.

Trump outlook for 2017

“Opportunities and challenges,” says Ludovic Subran, head of Euler Hermes Economic Research and deputy chief economist of Allianz research. “Companies which are domestic, either a regional multinational or national, will benefit. However, the business environment for large multi-national corporations who do have global, strongly regionally diversified business models will be more challenging. Stronger regional interests will make the lives of companies more complicated as there will be increasing protectionist regulation.”

Flint Water Investigation Leads to Felony Charges for Mich. State Employees

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A driving effort to save the state money was said to be the reasoning behind the Flint, Michigan water crisis, which has been tied to lead poisoning in children, among other issues. On Tuesday the state announced felony charges against former state emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, accused of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses. The two were said to have been focused on balance sheets rather than the welfare of citizens when they made the decision in 2014 to switch the city’s water supply from treated water in Lake Huron to water from the Flint River.

A state investigation, which began in January, had led to charges against eight state officials and an employee of the Flint water facility.

According to the New York Times:

Charges of false pretenses, conspiracy to commit false pretenses, misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty lodged against the former managers were lauded by Flint leaders, some of whom said they had feared that blame for the city’s contaminated water might ultimately be pinned only on low-level workers.

The claims also reopened a longstanding debate in Michigan over the state’s emergency management provision, reviving questions about whether the system removes power and control over local issues from those residents who come under state oversight.

For years, governors here have appointed emergency managers as a way to efficiently cut debts and restore financial stability in the most troubled cities. But residents of some majority-black Michigan cities, including Flint, argue that the intense state-assigned oversight disenfranchises voters, shifts control from mostly Democratic cities to the state’s Republican-held capital and risks favoring financial discipline over public health.

After the decision was made to use water from the Flint River, Flint residents had began to notice a peculiar odor, color and taste in the water that flowed from their taps. Some reported skin rashes, hair loss and other physical problems. But they did not know why. Water from the Flint River was used by Flint residents for 18 months, but because it was not treated to reduce corrosion, lead from old plumbing leached into the water. Testing revealed dangerous levels of lead.

Residents soon discovered they had been lied to. Public officials had known about the lead but kept quiet. As a result, between 6,000 and 12,000 children were exposed to the contaminated water, which will likely have serious consequences for their health.

Meanwhile, efforts to fix the problem are underway. State officials switched back to the original water source in October. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has estimated that replacing the more than 15,000 lead service lines in Flint would take $60 million and up to 15 years.

Building a Successful ERM Program

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Iman H. Al-Gharabally is responsible for the enterprise risk management program at Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and its subsidiaries since 2004. She is the team iman-h-al-gharabally-picleader, coordinator and project manager for the ERM program and its strategic implementation across the Kuwait oil sector. Al-Gharabally, a speaker at RIMS’ Middle East Risk Forum 2016, taking place Dec. 13 and 14 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, discusses the implementation strategies and successes of KPC’s ERM program.

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RIMS: How did you begin the process of building KPC’s ERM program?

Al-Gharabally: In 2002 the KPC managing directors at the time recognized there was a serious need to look into and have in place a consolidated view of potential risks and a consolidated risk management format of those risks facing the organization. Hence the ERM initiative was introduced as a way to instill this unified format of consolidated risk management mainly through the insurance section. In 2004 the ERM initiative was introduced and in 2006 the ISO 31000 was launched.

RIMS: How did you develop your ERM structure?

Al-Gharabally: Initially I had no prior knowledge of what ERM stood for. I was recruited in April 2004 from Kuwait Oil Company (a subsidiary to KPC) to project manage and lead this new ERM initiative. I studied the topic extensively and slowly had to lay down the foundation for a dynamic ERM program for KPC and its subsidiaries. We started at the very top, first in the corporate office looking at the strategy of the corporation and what the corporate objectives aimed to achieve in the coming five years from 2004 to 2009. We then looked at the potential risks that would prevent the corporation from achieving those objectives and started the communication lines across the subsidiaries to initiate awareness on these potential risks and put forth mitigation options to ensure the corporation was well prepared and to increase our abilities to deliver on our strategic objectives.

It was imperative at the very beginning to ensure that we worked hand-in-hand with the various planning, HSE and marketing units across the entire value chain. The idea was to start the conversations early and brainstorm unilaterally for solutions to be placed to counteract any potential risks emerging that would hinder our 2020 strategic business goals.

Over the first few months in 2004, we managed to convince CEOs across the group to create and assign a focal point to be internally responsible for ERM and coordinate and liaise with us at the corporate head office on all ERM related matters. It took 10-12 months before having each subsidiary assign a dedicated ERM focal point. Once there were dedicated individuals to communicate with and be internally responsible for monitoring and reporting on all risk-related matters, the next phase of setting up an ERM framework and governance structure was initiated. In 2007 the ISO 31000 framework was launched across the group for implementation.

KPC’s ERM structure is that of a hybrid matrix in which central ERM policies, procedures and key performance measures are set, while subsidiaries and ERM units across the group are free to implement according to their individual company’s needs and business model.

RIMS: How did you make ERM a success?

Al-Gharabally: It was not an easy task, to be honest. KPC is the corporate head office to eight other companies from upstream to downstream. The nature of their business is quite complex and diversified. So to lead ERM initiatives and have them fully incorporated and periodically monitor and report on the progress is a challenging full time task. The key is to be well integrated.

From the very start of our initiative in 2004 we made certain that the corporate head office ERM unit was well integrated with each and every single subsidiary ERM unit. We put in place a platform establishing a community of ERM best practice and there are means to discuss, troubleshoot and share various topics to ensure the benefit is widely absorbed across the entire oil sector. We conduct periodic risk culture surveys and benchmark ourselves not only internally across the group, but also against international financial and oil corporations with advanced risk management programs.

RIMS: What is unique about KPC’s approach to ERM?

Al-Gharabally: Having an ERM program in place in an oil corporation is in itself unique. To take that further and have a single unified ERM strategy and shared initiatives across multi discipline functions and across eight subsidiaries elevates the uniqueness. Having delivered a successful fully functioning ERM program over the past 13 years in close collaboration with the corporation’s strategic planning, financial and marketing departments sets KPC’s ERM program apart.

RIMS: What tools/resources have been the most helpful on this journey?

Al-Gharabally: From a risk culture perspective, establishing a community of best practices for ERM individuals to have a platform to share and collaborate various ideas, trouble-shoot implementation issues or integrate objectives on unilateral ERM implementation plans is critical to the success of our program. Having a risk operating committee chaired by the CFO and reporting to the corporation’s risk and audit committee was also a critical success factor to KPC’s ERM initiative. Subsidiaries learned early on that having a dedicated ERM unit reporting directly to the CEO, with no conflicts of interest of shared ownership of risks in the reporting line, was a critical success factor to KPC’s ERM structure. From a technical perspective, establishing a clear ERM framework, policy and procedure as well as systematic reporting of risks in a unified ERM information system, and linking the reporting to the corporations was a critical success factor.

Rims: How can ERM best inform strategy?

Al-Gharabally: KPC’s decision to maximize transparency and work closely with strategy marketing and finance was a key aspect in making our ERM program successful. To be able to look at leading risk indicators and have in place the appropriate mitigation options for improving the corporation’s performance in meeting its strategic objectives is an invaluable resource.

RIMS: What advice can you give those embarking on building a world-class ERM program?

Al-Gharabally: Communication, communication, communication! Had we not lobbied, or brainstormed across various business functions early in our journey in 2004, or not ensured that we had the full support of planning and finance on board for our ERM initiatives, our program most likely would have flopped!