E-Mail Archiving: 'No CFO Wants To Go To Jail'

E-mail archiving and electronic discovery are no longer a best practice for a select few companies. IT departments need to get their e-mail records in order.

E-mail archiving has become a high priority amid growing regulatory requirements for better electronic record keeping. "E-mail and electronic documents have become business records," says T.M. Ravi, co-founder and CEO of four-year-old Mimosa Systems, developer of e-mail archiving software for Microsoft Exchange environments. "They need to be kept over time and be searchable."

Digital Docs Raise Compliance Issues

Many tools exist that can help companies manage electronic documents in compliance with court rules, but some attendees of an electronic discovery conference this week said they don't trust all the technology.

Several technologies, such as e-mail archiving software, can help reduce risk and manage costs associated with e-discovery rules, vendors and other advocates said Friday at the Advanced E-Discovery Institute at the Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C.

Examining Hard Drives During Discovery

Over-stuffed file cabinets that hold business records and personal information have been replaced by compact computer hard drives that offer easy and convenient storage of and access to a variety of items, including correspondence, forms, memos, photos, account information and Internet transactions.

As a federal district court judge recently observed, a computer itself is not evidence in most cases, but merely the instrument for creating evidence (like a typewriter) or the means of storing it (like a file cabinet).

Accordingly, today's litigants routinely seek access to opponent's computer hard drive to search for discoverable evidence, especially when the opposing party may not be forthcoming about deleted or transferred files.

Discovery is Becoming More Important

A growing majority of business records for most organizations are stored in e-mail data stores. That means that organizations that are sued or that want to undertake legal actions need to be able to access this information, understand what the data says, extract the relevant data and put it into a form that is usable for decision makers, legal staff and others.

The fundamental problem, however, is that e-mail data stores are huge. Given that there are hundreds of megabytes in each user’s mailbox, there are hundreds of gigabytes or terabytes of data in backup systems or archives, and all the data that is stored locally or on mobile devices, discovery can become a very thorny problem.

A Proactive Approach to E-discovery

In December 2006 the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to address electronically stored information, with the result that ESI is now subject to discovery, meaning it can be requested as evidence in court cases.

Most corporate legal departments understand these changes, but many company management teams and departments that create and manage ESI may not be aware of their exposure should they get involved in litigation. The consequences of not creating a proactive electronic discovery (e-discovery) process can be fines, unfavorable judgments and increased operating costs. All of these can result in diverting attention from running the business, as well as costs in money, time and corporate reputation.

e-Discovery Coming to the Fore

The number of large corporate frauds in India hasn't reached the alarming heights it has in the West. Nor are regulatory requirements, introduced in the wake of huge financial scandals, as strict. But then, the world is flat. It mayn't be long before Indian companies find themselves vulnerable.

According to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, four out of five businesses worldwide have been the victims of corporate fraud at an average cost of US $1.1 million within the last 3 years. One in 10 large companies lose more than US $100 million each year from corporate fraud. All this underscores the importance of e-discovery.