December 4, 2006

FEATURE EDITORIAL

New FRCP Amendments Come Into Affect

The amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) came into effect December 1, which means parties involved in a legal dispute could face six-figure penalties for failing to produce email evidence during the pre-trial phase. According to the new rules, companies must retain all corporate records, including email and data compilations, and make them available to the court as soon as there is a reasonable expectation that a lawsuit might occur, without the court having to specifically make a discovery request.

FRCP Quick Facts

Who it affects:
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) govern the conduct of all civil actions brought in the U.S. Federal district courts.

The amendments:
There are two main amendments made to the FRCP under Section V, Depositions and Discovery.

Rule 26: General Provisions Governing Discovery; Duty of Disclosure
This rule states that companies must retain all corporate records, including email and data compilations, and make them available to the court as soon as there is a reasonable expectation that a lawsuit might occur, without the court having to specifically make a discovery request.

Rule 34: Production of Documents and Things and Entry Upon Land for Inspection and Other Purposes
This rule states that "any party" can request relevant records for inspection and the company in question is responsible for making this info available within 30 days of the request.

Further information can be found by visiting: http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule26.htm

Email Archiving Solutions Can Help

As organizations prepare to follow FRCP, many are turning to tools such as email archiving solutions - such as Fortiva, Inc offers. A key component of following the FRCP involves monitoring employee email usage.

Solutions like Fortiva's email archiving suite can give companies instant access to correspondence, and includes a search capability to allow organizations to quickly identify documents relevant to the discovery request. This could ultimately help organizations prove their innocence in the event of a lawsuit.

Small Business Solutions Offered

This week, Privacy Networks announced the latest release of its E-mail Integrity Suite (EIS). The latest version of Privacy Networks' EIS includes major new functionality that improves archiving and advanced search of email, end-user productivity and overall email security to enable timely and cost-effective e-discovery processes for litigation, regulatory compliance and better business practices.

"Having delivered a fully integrated suite of email integrity products that simplifies and lowers the cost for government, education and SMB customers, we now have added new capabilities that make it even easier and more practical to manage all aspects of email management," says Steve Berens, president and CEO of Privacy Networks. "Previously, only large enterprises could afford the sophisticated email management tools available in the market. Now, SMBs can realize the same benefits at a very affordable cost through a single, integrated platform that tears down the disparate silos of using and managing different point solutions."

The company's solutions also addresses encryption, integrated spam and anti-virus functionality.

Also announced this week, the launch of MessageLabs Small Business Solutions from MessageLabs Ltd. Designed to specifically meet the needs of small and mid-sized businesses, the solutions address many of the key security challenges facing smaller businesses today. According to the company spam continues to be a major threat to all businesses with global spam levels in November reaching 74 percent of all emails, the highest level observed since early 2005. However, business sector analysis from the latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report reveals that increased attention is given to businesses of under 250 employees who receive almost twice as many spam messages as medium sized companies and 30 percent more spam than large enterprise organizations.

"Small companies are especially challenged," agrees Gary Chen, SME IT infrastructure and applications analyst at Yankee Group. "As they lack the IT expertise and resources to conquer something as complex as IT security, while also facing the same threats as large enterprises. Managed services are really the only way for these businesses to put up a proper defense, given the situation and the desire to focus on their core business and other more strategic IT and business issues."

IN THE NEWS

Coversant Open Sources Software Development Kits

Coversant, Inc., the first provider of inter-enterprise Collaborative Messaging software, today announced that a complete suite of open source software developer kits (SDKs) for building custom XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) based collaboration applications are available at Coversant's new online Developer Community at http://developers.coversant.net The developer community provides the latest source code and documentation as well as a forum for support and the exchange of new ideas. With more than two million users, Coversant is showing expansive growth of its XMPP solutions.

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