Elizabeth Crossick

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

Elizabeth Crossick, a trained lawyer, is deputy director of APCO Worldwide’s Brussels Office, a post she took up in October 2011. This role sees Crossick work with Paolo Nicoletti the APCO Brussels managing director and Michael Burrell vice-chair for Europe. APCO Worldwide is a lobbying firm born out of the Washington-based tobacco industry law firm Arnold and Porter, from which it derives its name. Public Affairs reported that since leaving Brown-Forman in 2009 "She has spent the past two years doing consultancy, including for Brown-Forman". Crossick is also a partner at Goodbrand, a international sustainability and social responsibility consultancy.

Career History

Alcohol industry lobbyist

In January 2007 Crossick joined Brown-Forman. There she was head of European government relations and social responsibility for the US drinks company, owners of Bacardi. Crossick's job was a newly created post at a time when excessive drinking and subsequent harm threatened to provoke profit harming regulations from policymakers. Crossick’s role with Brown-Forman involved lobbying politicians in Westminster and Brussels in a bid to stave off tougher alcohol control in the UK and Europe.

This article is part of the Spinwatch public health oriented Alcohol Portal project.

Between 2007 and 2009, while working at Brown-Forman, Crossick held the chair at the European Forum for Responsible Drinking (EFRD)

Lobbyist at Elite law firm

Between 1998 and the end of 2006 Crossick was the director of public affairs at the Brussels office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s an elite EU law firm. in 2002 Crossick was listed as being part of the 'telecommunications, media and technology group' at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

While employed there Crossick was a member of the Society of European Affairs Professionals, a lobbyist's association that lobbies against lobbying transparency.

Think tank connections

Crossick is the daughter of Uber-lobbyist Stanley Crossick (who died in 2010). He co-founded the European Policy Centre think tank in 1997. According to Public Affairs News Elizabeth also 'worked for' the EPC. Stanley Crossick was regarded as one of the most influential European lobbyists and is credited with shaping the profession in Brussels. This appears to have been in its early years around 1996. For example a brief note on the predecessor of the EPC the Belmont European Policy Centre gives Elizabeth Crossick as one of the two contacts for the think tank.

To relax every six months, Crossick says she spends an evening at The Sanctuary, a day spa for women in London's Covent Garden. "For a few hours, the world stops spinning," she says. "There's no phone, no BlackBerry, and no one can get hold of you. It's priceless – a getaway from the real world."

Lobbying

On disclosing the fees paid for lobbying Crossick told EurActiv

I don't think the size of the fees has anything to do with whether the pressure has been exerted badly or not, or in the wrong way, frankly. The fact that clients pay fees for lobbying is part of the democratic architecture. And I also think this is a very dangerous path to go down, because how are we going to prove the fee levels? Is somebody going to go and check the fees invoices? And then there will be incentives for blowing them up!

When Crossick was asked whether she thought that if the EU’s Transparency Initiative (launched in 2005) became law would deter dubious or 'border line' lobbying she said:

There are bad guys in every profession. If you've got somebody who is prepared to break up the law, all laws in the world won't stop him from doing so. What all this does is drawing the attention of a number of people about what is expected of them. I think there is the case here of lots of people not breaking the law voluntarily, but mostly not realising that what they are doing is close to the line. It is not because they want to break the law, or because they are evil, but because of cultural differences.

Earlier in the interview Crossick had tried to define what she meant by cultural difference:

For example: when is something a gift? If a parliamentary assistant is kind enough to open up the door to your client, do you send her flowers afterwards to thank her, if it is a woman? Southern Europeans would say absolutely! But the Scandinavian reaction would be absolutely not in any way! So, no matter how much regulation you do, you cannot change cultural ways of doing things.

Affiliations

BCC EU Committee Chair

References

Back to Lobbying Portal