SHANGHAI & HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kroll Ontrack, the leading global provider of ediscovery technologies and services to companies involved in litigation and investigations, today announced the availability of its ediscovery capabilities to clients in China.
There is growing awareness in China of the need to consider electronic evidence in legal proceedings. In countries like the US and UK there is a formal duty in litigation to carry out ediscovery, which involves searching for and producing electronic documents relevant in a case. While there is no such requirement in China, companies and law firms are increasingly relying on ediscovery technologies to respond to scrutiny from regulators and their demands for information.
Companies and law firms in China are also turning to ediscovery technologies to carry out internal audits as they put in place robust compliance programmes designed to uncover corporate wrongdoing such as bribery or anti-competitive behavior. Companies faced with the challenge of managing increasingly large volumes of big data are consulting ediscovery experts for help managing electronic evidence and leveraging new technologies to reduce the legal costs associated with handling data estates.
Of paramount importance in China is the need to observe State Secrecy laws, which require data to be processed in China. Additionally, data often needs to be processed at a company’s premises due to privacy concerns. Ediscovery solutions that allow clients to process data in country and onsite at a company’s premises are therefore essential.
Kroll Ontrack’s mobile ediscovery solution can be used when law firms and their clients in China are investigating fraud and corruption or anti-competitive behavior, when they are handling litigation data or retrieving and analyzing highly sensitive company data. Deployed by Kroll Ontrack’s legal technology experts, the robust mobile technology helps clients’ process, filter and analyze data anywhere. Companies and their lawyers are able to rapidly gain insight into data and unlock valuable information early on in an investigation. Because the solution can be deployed anywhere, data privacy regulations can be complied with and the confidentiality of sensitive corporate information can be protected.
Tim Phillips, Managing Director of Kroll Ontrack International Legal Technologies, said: “We have witnessed an exponential rise in the use of ediscovery services in countries beyond our traditional markets in the US and UK, where take-up of ediscovery was initially driven by changes to the legal system governing discovery and disclosure in legal proceedings.
“Ediscovery is now becoming an important element of the business and corporate governance landscape, even for countries that do not have an obligation to provide ediscovery under their legal framework. The important drivers for these countries, including China and Singapore, are more likely to be related to increased scrutiny by regulators and the transparency and compliance agenda.
“Demand from our clients all over the world for local expertise and support has driven the expansion of our network of data centers and document review teams into more and more locations across the world. While we have operated in the APAC region for 8 years and already work with Chinese law firms and companies in industries including telecommunications and consumer products, we believe the time is right to launch a formal operation that can meet the growing demand from clients for technology and consultancy. We are deploying a mobile solution now and it is our intention to continue to invest in this region including setting up a data centre in China as needed to support client interest and demand.”
Kate Chan, Managing Director Kroll Ontrack, APAC added: “Having worked extensively with clients in APAC and China we know the challenges they face managing data in legal proceedings and ensuring that privacy and secrecy laws are respected. We have the solutions needed to reduce risk and cost and are deploying these in China. Our research into the needs of law firms and companies in China demonstrates that there is huge demand for the powerful technology that Kroll Ontrack can provide along with professional services on a local and regional level. The amount of data companies have to manage means that responding to regulatory or legal requests for information is increasingly difficult without specialist tools and knowledge. ”
The deployment of Kroll Ontrack solutions into China is part of Kroll Ontrack’s strategy to provide access to its powerful technology and local expertise wherever and whenever clients need them. With its headquarters and significant operations in the U.S., and more than 2,000 employees worldwide Kroll Ontrack can deploy consultants familiar with local laws, languages and cultural issues, and offer a truly global service. As well as opening its German data centre in Frankfurt in May 2014, Kroll Ontrack launched its French data centre in Paris earlier in 2015 along with its highly successful and fast-growing document review centre in London’s legal district in January 2015.
Kroll Ontrack now manages over 20 petabytes of active data storage on behalf of clients around the globe in the US, UK, Japan, Germany and France.
For more information on Kroll Ontrack and its products and services, visit http://www.ediscovery.com
About Kroll Ontrack LLC
Kroll Ontrack provides technology-driven services and software to help legal, corporate and government entities as well as consumers manage, recover, search, analyze, and produce data efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition to its award-winning suite of software, Kroll Ontrack provides data recovery, data destruction, electronic discovery and document review services. For more information about Kroll Ontrack and its offerings please visit: http://www.ediscovery.com and follow @KrollOntrack on Twitter.
