SEC fraud cases, crucial physical evidence lost in the World Trade Centers attacks:
Amid smoke, flags, police, metal detectors and new security checkpoints, business slowly began to get back to usual in the U.S. Monday, as financial markets reopened for the first time in four days and a number of companies that had offices in New York's World Trade Center started to conduct operations again. Both of the World Trade Center's main towers were destroyed, along with some other buildings in or near the complex, while nearby facilities were also damaged, in terrorist attacks last Tuesday....
One body that has lost important data is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. An SEC office was destroyed in the attack and with it "material that was evidence of securities fraud which only existed in paper form," said William Malik, a Gartner analyst on Monday's conference call. The SEC also lost some audiotapes, he said.
The permanent loss of crucial documents underscores just how vital the need to back-up data is, Malik said. The SEC has not always made such copies because courts have sometimes been reluctant to accept them, he said. Nonetheless, when only a single copy of a document exists, companies must "develop a secured image (back up) and store and treat it as they would any other vital record," he said.
(Michael Rold and Nancy Weil in Boston and Stacy Cowley in New York contributed to this report.)
For more related stories, see IDG.net's Attack on World Trade Center & Pentagon special channel. |
