UK Firms Unprepared For Technology Implications Of New Compliance Regulations

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

30 June 2004

A recent survey carried out on behalf of data storage firm, Adaptec has revealed that IT directors in many of the UK's financial services and other firms are likely to be caught on the hop by the implications of recent international compliance initiatives, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, the updated International Accounting Standards, and the Basel II capital adequacy and risk management rules.

According to the poll, 47% of IT directors from UK firms revealed that they would not be able to retrieve an e-mail that was more than three years old. 25% of the financial services firms questioned admitted that this was the case, putting them in breach of Financial Services Authority regulations on e-mail storage, which require firms to keep business-related e-mails for up to six years.

53% of respondents across all sectors were unable to confirm whether they had an e-mail storage policy, whilst 37% said that they definitely did not.

Speaking to the Silicon.com news service with regard to the results of the survey, Adaptec's European managing director, Russ Johnson warned that: "IT managers are going to be caught flat-footed."

He went on to explain:

"You think how long it takes to build the infrastructure. A lot of companies dismiss Sox (Sarbanes-Oxley) as an American problem. They need to be addressing these issues now."

Recommended