Australian corporate and government enterprises are still struggling to come to terms with legal and technological consequences of e-mail according to a consortium representing the data storage industry.

The consortium, consisting of storage management companies EMC, Legato Systems and Enstor, said that while Australian organisations are becoming increasingly concerned about the risks associated with integrating email into their business practices following the heightened profile the issue has been given in the United States over recent months, the area remains a mystery for most of them.

Scott Phillips, regional manager Legato Systems Australia and NZ claims that e-mail management is now the number one technology concern of US companies, following several well-publicised cases in which US enterprises were landed with multi-million dollar fines for failing to comply with archiving regulations. However, he said, Australian companies were now starting to take notice.

"There is such a growing area of concern and confusion over the legal and compliance issues that are now associated with the various government and corporate [entities]," said Phillips.

Phillips said that in the United States and Europe, concerns regarding e-mail were being driven by regulatory obligations governing the archiving of emails. In Australia, where authorities are yet to implement statutory measures to regulate company storage of e-mail documents, concern primarily orbits litigation and the courts.

If a company can't produce e-mails easily for litigation purposes, it exposes itself to the risk of not being able to provide enough evidence for defence or spending large amounts of money to retrieve emails that could be three or four years old, said Philips.

According to Phillips the HIH collapse also played a part in bringing the technology issue to the fore.

"We're seeing the HIH collapse and the evidence being called for there ... it impacted the company's ability to provide emails for evidence in litigation matters," he said.

Legato Systems surveyed around 300 companies last December and found that while most companies were simply erasing their e-mail records many were still using the medium for financial transactions.

The consortium plans to hold a seminar to educate companies about their e-mail compliance early June.

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