World Briefing

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E-Discovery

ATTN: Smoking gun! According to a recent survey, 1 in 5 U.S. companies has had employee e-mails subpoenaed in the course of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation so far this year. The cost of gathering such electronic data: $700 million expected to grow to $1.8 billion in 2006. This promises to be a boon for the e-mail archivers a niche industry that has emerged to help companies cope by shifting from the costly process of sorting through unorganized data stored on backup tapes to proactive email archiving with speedy search engines. In August, Veritas Software paid $225 million for e-mail archiver KVS, while fellow archiver Zantaz snapped up Steelpoint Technologies; both acquired companies provide e-discovery services to many a blue-chip client. E-mail archiver iLumin has also just created a discovery-services unit, which has attracted four of the five largest banks, with a filter that allows messages with questionable content to be quarantined for review.

CORRECTION
Pairs Trading
In last month's investing column, Seth Weiss's organization was misidentified. The correct firm is Green Pairs, an independent stock-market-research company that provides a Web-based tool for investors seeking to identify and trade pairs of stocks. The website is www.greenpairs.com .

11% DECREASE IN MONTHLY CEO TURNOVER, FROM 54 IN JULY TO A NEAR RECORD LOW OF 48 IN AUGUST