See the costs of e-discovery as detailed by Accountancy Age:
"As innocuous as they may once have seemed, the incriminating nature of emails produced as evidence in US corruption trials has forced executives to rethink the expense of managing delicate electronic documents.
"The cost of e-dicovery revealing documents in the run up to a trial may also have chief financial officers worried as evidence emerges that the process can rack up fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.There are numerous examples where electronic documents are in evidence. At present, emails involving Enron’s former CEO Jeffrey Skilling are being used by the prosecution at the fraud trial taking place in Houston.
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"EDDix, a special research company, estimates the e-discovery industry will generate $2bn in revenues for vendors this year and it has compound growth of 35%.
"Many companies, though, are not yet prepared. According to research from Gartner, nearly every civil court case in the developed world now involves e-discovery, but still more than half of IT organisations and in-house legal teams are not geared up to handle requests for electronic evidence."