What Directors Need to Know About Document Retention
Saturday, October 1 2005
Are yon mindful that those personal notes taken at board meetings or casual e-mails between you and other directors may trigger unforeseen consequences? Here's a guide for independent directors concerned about what types of records one should keep in the post - Sarbanes-Oxley era.
We begin our inquiry by asking why an individual director should consider implementing his or her own records retention practice. Navigating today's complex legal landscape can seem overwhelming to any director sitting on the board of a public company. Since the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, one particular area that has received increased regulatory oversight is records retention, also known as "document retention." The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines a "record" as information created, received and maintained as evidence by an organization or person in the transaction of business, or in the pursuance of legal obligations, regardless of media. Although many articles exist about records management practices of companies and their employees and the need for companies to have clearly enforced records retention policies, few articles directly consider records retention from an individual director's perspective. This article will highlight some practical records retention practices for individual directors and discuss certain records retention issues from the perspective of a director of a public company.