New Electronic Discovery Rules May Mean Some Changes In The IT Department
Most people don’t even know about this. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure received a makeover that will make Sarbanes-Oxley Act seem like a paid holiday for IT staff. In a nutshell - no more excuses of “the PC ate my email”. If you are involved in a federal lawsuit (will the states follow?), you must provide electronic communications, including email and instant messages from anyone in the company, as part of any compliance with production of documents. And whereas the Sarbanes-Oxley Act affected only publicly held companies, this update to federal civil procedures affects anyone and everyone involved.
Don’t feel bad if you aren’t prepared, because you aren’t alone. According to a recent survey in Computerworld Networking, “About 32% of 170 IT managers and staffers surveyed said they aren’t prepared to meet the requirements of the federal edict, 11% said they are somewhat prepared, while 42% said they don’t know the status of their companies’ preparation.”
[update 10 Jan 2007] Could you produce old e-mails and IMs in the event of a lawsuit? - detailed article from Computerworld regarding the issue.
10 January 2007 | Business, Consulting, Litigation, Technology | Comments
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