You've got mail - and you'd better keep it

New corporate governance regulations will require that companies keep large number of emails that previously have been destroyed.

American, European and Asian regulators are working with the OECD on a code that would mandate all companies to keep any paperwork or electronic communication that throw light on asset valuation, top executive pay or other core financial details.

At present, many companies leave email management to individual executives, who may or may not save them to hard disks or servers. Many choose to delete them after a period of time, which often means they are removed simultaneously from company or ISP servers.

A requirement for companies to keep non-transactional records such as email will add substantially to IT costs. By the same token IT consultants and software developers look set to reap handsome rewards.

In the United States, the move is likely to form part of a wider requirement for proper documentation and detailed audit trails. By June next year companies will have to meet a Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirement that internal controls are properly documented and tested, a move that will add an average half a million dollars to the costs of a medium sized company.

Outside America life is hardly much easier. About 1,500 non-US companies, including many of the biggest, are listed on US stockmarkets, and therefore have to observe Sarbanes-Oxley.

In Europe the rules are still evolving, but, despite pressure from business, are not seen to be getting any easier, a subject which is likely to feature prominently in a one day seminar later this month. This will be chaired by Dean Laura Tyson of the London Business School, supported by corpo rate governance luminaries like Derek Higgs, author of the Higgs Report to the British government, now gathering a little dust on the shelves.