Publicis Consultants and Orrick Announce Unique Service to Companies Confronting Avian Flu Concerns

Business Wire, April 26, 2006

NEW YORK -- Two of the leading organizations in corporate legal and communication counsel are joining forces to assist companies in strengthening their ability to respond to the challenges posed by the spread of Avian Flu.

In order to raise awareness in the international business community about preparedness and legal exposure in the face of Avian Flu, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, a global law firm, and Publicis Consultants, a multinational corporate communications consultancy, have launched the Avian Flu Management Information Support System. Each will present its own distinctive services to companies preparing for a potential pandemic.

The services will aim to support companies to:

--Access immediate developments affecting their specific interests

--Understand and plan to comply with changing regulatory and legal requirements

--Communicate to their various stakeholders in order to reduce risks to them

--Demonstrate corporate responsibility and accountability in transparent actions and communications to protect corporate interests and those of the company's stakeholders including:

--  Employees
           --  Customers
           --  Suppliers
           --  Shareholders
           --  Communities in which the company has facilities or does
               business

--Assure the corporation that it can respond to potential future legal and public challenges to its action regarding foreseeable risks to it from the Avian Flu

The separate services will also offer up-to-the-minute, global information with legal, regulatory and communications counsel to management. This information and advice will have the potential to be filtered in the context of specific corporate interests identified by the company.

For more information and to request a customized plan on regulatory and communications preparedness, visit the website at: www.corpfluinfo.com

Publicis Consultants

Publicis Consultants is the international corporate communication and strategies network of the Publicis Groupe, the world's fourth-largest communications organization. Publicis Consultants provides strategic counsel for companies and public institutions to assist them to achieve their organizational objectives. Publicis Consultants also offers operational support to successfully implement those communications strategies. Practice areas include press relations, government relations, financial communications and investor relations, public relations and events, employee and management communications, issue management and crisis communications, publications, web-based communications, brand audit and positioning, and product design.

About Orrick

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP is an international law firm with approximately 850 lawyers in North America, Europe, and Asia. The firm focuses on litigation, complex and novel finance, and innovative corporate transactions. Orrick clients include Fortune 100 companies, major industrial and financial corporations, commercial and investment banks, high-growth companies, governmental entities, start-ups, and individuals. The firm's 16 offices are located in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Orange County, Pacific Northwest, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Taipei, and Tokyo.

LANNY J. DAVIS

System Leader, United States
Partner, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Davis is a Partner in the Litigation Practice Group of the global law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. Mr. Davis advises clients on a wide range of legal and governmental issues. He concentrates his practice in civil litigation, with particular focus on securities fraud and accounting irregularities cases, antitrust, government contracts and commercial litigation, and legal crisis management and strategic communications. In June 2005, President Bush appointed Mr. Davis to serve on the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2005 Intelligence Reform Act.

From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Davis served as Special Counsel to the President in the White House and was spokesperson for the President on matters concerning the campaign finance investigations and other legal issues. Drawing upon this experience, since his return to private practice, Mr. Davis provides counseling to corporations and government contractors on crisis management issues by developing press strategies for entities exposed to high-profile litigation and regulatory matters, particularly in high-tech/securities fraud cases and other legal issues where media coverage can affect legal outcomes and commercial reputational injuries.

Mr. Davis graduated in 1970 from Yale Law School, where he won the prestigious Thurmon Arnold Moot Court prize and served on the Yale Law Journal. A graduate of Yale College, Mr. Davis served as Chairman of the Yale Daily News.

Mr. Davis has been a regular television commentator and has been a political and legal analyst for MSNBC, CNN, Fox Cable, CNBC and network TV news programs. He has published numerous opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other national publications. He is also the author of Truth to Tell Notes From My White House Education (The Free Press: New York, 1999) and The Emerging Democratic Majority: Lessons and Legacies from the New Politics (Stein and Day, 1973).