After sitting at the check of the last smartphone on our desk in front of the bed, we are always recalling the huge amount of e-mail and data aimed at us. In 2010, it was shown that approximately 294 million e-mails were sent every business day. According to the statistics of 2011, a typical business mail account sends and receives an average of 105 e-mails on a daily basis. (DynamicBusiness, 1 September 2011) The difficulty of quantifying enterprise electronic documents (reports, spreadsheets, wikis, SharePoint entries, MS Office documents, etc.) depends on the type of enterprise and industry. However, the trend is clear, and this constantly growing data wave has a tremendous impact on document retention and litigation hold strategy, especially in light of profit and loss.
Such large-scale data storage is expensive and is directly related to costs related to risk management of companies that are particularly exposed to lawsuits and government regulations. For full-fledged processing, reviews and production, there is a possibility that the documentation fee of 2.70 to 4.00 dollars may be charged for each document. (Degnan D. Accounting for Electronic Discovery Costs, Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, 2011; 12 (1): 151-190) Everyone will not be subject to riot sanctions, but in many cases unnecessary It is of paramount concern to defensively reduce the millions of documents stored in it. This practice not only reduces litigation costs by disposing of old, useless, or business-unrelated data, but also risks arising from unnecessarily holding potentially harmful data And litigation to be raised or anticipated to alleviate some of the costs.
In the presence of competitive interests, it is difficult to align the corporate document retention policy with the litigation hold strategy. In order to achieve an optimum balance between the two plans, the legal department and the IT department need to make more effective coordination. Risk management may be the ultimate goal of both divisions, but their views are sufficiently different, and in many cases they do not appreciate each other's contribution to achieve this goal. In order to form an ideal document retention policy, these departments must rely on each other's expertise.
When litigation or government regulation goes into this equation, all document retention policies are subject to scrutiny. This level of scrutiny is based on rationality criteria. Is there a "reasonable" specific document storage policy for organizational needs and litigation and exposure to regulation? To measure this rationality threshold, companies need to do a series of questions about business needs, obligations, industry standards, and exposure to litigation themselves. To answer these questions, Legal wants to talk to IT. On the other hand, IT departments need to rely on laws on what kind of documents to handle under a specific retention policy.
The appropriate document retention policy also takes into account statutes and regulatory requirements that determine the retention period of a particular document. Each type of document, including contracts, injury / product liability, taxes, Sarbanes-Oxley method, EPA and OSHA related documentation, must be retained and disposed accordingly. For example, by law, the period of breach of contract may range from 3 to 20 years from the date of violation. However, most contract disputes take place during the contract period of the problem or just after the end of the contract, and you can fine-tune the contract retention document retention. For best document retention policies, there is also a procedure for associating the backup tape with other forms of deeper archive storage. This is due to the high cost associated with identifying, accessing, and generating data.
When will the focus shift to obligation to bring a lawsuit from document retention? Obligation to retain when a party makes a notice of a potential lawsuit first. If parties reasonably anticipate litigation, it is mandatory to suspend daily document retention / destruction policy and to hold a lawsuit in order to ensure the preservation of relevant documents. Goodman v. Praxair Services, Inc., __ F.Supp. 2 d __, 2009 WL 1955805 * 14 (D.Md. July 7, 2009) (see Zubulake IV, 218 FRD 220). There is an obvious (and slighter) "trigger event" that may require suspension of the lawsuit. Subpoena, manufacture by court order, receipt of delivery note, or complaint is a clear indicator that obliges you and your organization to hold relevant data. In addition, litigation threats (such as demand letters and emails) by employees, customers, or contract partners are disclosed to the company and are also disclosed to protect related data from violence. Employee complaints related to labor-related complaints, such as hostile work environment, sexual harassment, age discrimination, etc. cause complaint concerning related related documents.
The pending process of litigation is extremely difficult, time consuming and costly to comply fully with the discovery rules and case laws. Fortunately, along with the spread of electronically stored information over the past decade, several SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions have become available and support this cumbersome process. These tools help external lawyers and internal legal counsels quickly send litigation pending notes to appropriate administrators and track acceptance of hold notifications.
Collaboration, reasonable practices and policies, and changes in retention periods for various documents will be a means of anticipating and cutting corporate litigation costs. In addition to reducing the storage cost, there is the possibility that substantial cost savings will be realized when reviewing and creating these documents. In order to further maximize efficiency, you can incorporate new technologies that cancels the difficult task of strengthening legal binding. Despite the constant flow of e-mails, reports, spreadsheets and other data, management of document retention and litigation preservation is not overwhelming.
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