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Fortune Promoseven is to hand back the whole of its Doha office's Lynx haul, in an attempt to draw a line under the increasingly corrosive scam scandal that has plagued this year's awards.
The agency released a statement saying: "[I]t has been decided that FP7 Doha will hand back all of its awards from
the Dubai Lynx festival, and FP7 Doha has also been instructed not to
submit any entries to Cannes Lions 2009."
The statement also confirmed that heads will roll: "Corrective actions are being taken and several staff responsible will part ways with the company."
Realistically, this probably means Fadi Yaish, FP7 Doha's creative director, and the man on whom much of this mess is being pinned (wrongly, we would argue).
As to whether he will be joined by others, whether from Doha or Dubai, remains to be seen.
Philip Thomas, CEO of Dubai Lynx organisers Cannes Lions, said in a statement: "Promoseven's decision to have FP7 Doha return all awards - including
bona-fide winners - shows real intent. Dubai Lynx is about lifting
creativity for clients in the region and this action sends a signal to
the market that this is what the focus of Lynx will be in the future.
"We will announce changes to the 2010 entry criteria shortly," he added.
Lynx will be very anxious to put an end to this unpleasantness, so will welcome anything that looks like making all of this go away.
It is also in the process of running an investigation into other agencies' work, but as yet no details about this have been announced.
As far as FP7 is concerned, though, it looks like this is now entering the endgame. Stay tuned for any further developments.
The Fortune Promoseven statement in full:
“Fortune Promoseven had committed to thoroughly investigate FP7 Doha’s entries into Dubai Lynx 2009. This internal investigation has now been concluded. It seems our strict policies and procedures for awards entries were circumvented. This is clearly unacceptable to our company. As a strong demonstration of the seriousness with which we view such behaviour, it has been decided that FP7 Doha will hand back all of its awards from the Dubai Lynx festival, and FP7 Doha has also been instructed not to submit any entries to Cannes Lions 2009. Corrective actions are being taken and several staff responsible will part ways with the company. In addition, FP7 Doha is strengthening its policies and procedures to ensure compliance for all future awards entries.”
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