How Email Compliance Laws Affect Securities and Investment Companies
For certain types of companies in a variety of industries, email compliance laws are a fact of life that must be dealt with regularly. Whether they are involved in investment banking and securities or the oil and gas industry, for example, federal laws are stringent about electronic correspondence. In short, emails may count as corporate records even though they are not hard copies of documents or materials. Certain types of documents must be retained by securities firms, investment banks and advisors, insurance agents and brokerage firms dealing with securities in keeping with the Securities and Exchange Commission Rules 17a-3 and -4.
To meet compliance law standards, small businesses and large corporations alike have begun using automated systems to automatically back up or archive all company correspondence. While the type of correspondence that must be retained is typically understood by a company’s information technology employees, most workers are not familiar with the hows and the wheres involved. This can be done through a computer network system without individual brokers and financial experts having to manually transfer files. Email archive systems, such as the Orca virtual appliance and the Razorsafe appliance, can take the guesswork out of compliance by archiving emails to a virtual server or hardware system. Once the system is set up it securely archives and protects the email correspondence. The backups can be monitored and accessed as needed, allowing the business owners and employees to concern themselves with running the business, rather than chasing down emails.
