Bell Pottinger Booted From PR Body Over South Africa Conduct

Bell Pottinger LLP, the public-relations firm started by an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, has been thrown out of the U.K. industry body in an unprecedented ruling after an investigation found its work on behalf of the Gupta family in South Africa had stoked racial tensions.

Bell Pottinger ran a potentially divisive social-media campaign aimed at highlighting economic inequality in South Africa along racial grounds and targeted wealthy white individuals and companies, according to a probe by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills LLP. The company’s actions “brought the industry into disrepute,” the Public Relations and Communications Association said on Tuesday. “It has received the harshest possible sanctions. The PRCA has never before passed down such a damning indictment of an agency’s behavior.”