Why e-mail management matters.
We all know about and have learnt enough about anti-virus, spam-filters, Trojan horses and the uncountable amount of e-mails entering the daily inbox.
But do we have enough information on how to meet with the e-mail-management challenge?
Laws, rules, regulations – from the origin of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act to the most recent standards, such as SEPA and 8th EU directive –
Laws, rules, regulations – from the origin of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act to the most recent standards, such as SEPA and 8th EU directive – enterprises increasingly see the need to deal with the general issue of how to use e-mail at its best. Drivers like how to deal with internal intellectual property and compliance aspects followed by IT security standards up to country specific archiving regulations sometimes cause headaches at management level. Loss of data, loss of reputation, loss of business relationships could be summarized as the risk potential in a non-compliant e-mail-management scenario.
Organisations, for example that do business with the US are increasingly coming under the scrutiny of the American authorities, who are starting to carry out investigations based on the Foreign Corrupt Practises Act (FCPA). The main objective of the compliance rules of the FCPA is to stem worldwide corruption, i.e. a legal framework was created in order to uncover instances of bribery and corruption and make them punishable.
Meanwhile, the fines imposed have risen to eight-figure sums. The focus of attention is the granting of a benefit to an office-holder, with whose help new business deals are concluded or prior business continued. The FCPA aims to put a stop to this by all means and make such acts punishable. ‘Knowing’ and ‘seeing’ nothing definitely does not count as an excuse. On the contrary: If prohibitions are deliberately ignored (‘conscious disregard’) or if a person is deliberately negligent (‘wilful blindness’) or if rules are simply ignored (‘deliberate ignorance’), then conviction will usually follow.
That is why we – amongst other reasons - recommend paying very close attention to all e-mails sent and received to ensure that absolutely no initial suspicion arises. Doing this manually can be very time-consuming, so we recommend an automated, process-oriented approach: E-mail management at its best!
(Rudolf Weiss, Compliance Manager GROUP Technologies AG)