In summer of 2004, UBS bank was found by a judge to have “willfully destroyed” email evidence in a discrimination case. UBS was ordered to pay costs and a jury returned a $29 million verdict.

Email Policy

To protect your business, you must have a procedure in place to maintain email communications generated through business. Failure to keep these records can lead to rulings in litigation that your business willfully destroyed evidence. If this occurs, judge may issue significant monetary sanctions, automatically find you liable or take other harsh steps that assure a victory for Plaintiff. As if such developments are not bad enough, there exists a second risk associated with email communications.

Maintaining email communications, however, can have a downside. The problem arises, of course, when a communication contains statements that are damaging to your business. Yes, proverbial catch-22 situation.

To avoid such disasters, your business must develop a clear policy on email communications and train all employees to comply with that policy. Employees must understand business environment is not one in which jokes, flippant remarks and so on should be made in email communications.

The most common issues addressed in ownership agreement are when and how equity interest will be bought back by business or other owners. Common topics include:

· First Right of Refusal if a shareholder tries to sell their stock;

· Right of owners to buy stock from estate of a deceased owner to avoid ownership by children or spouse of deceased owner. This is often combined with life insurance products to supply a means for making payment;

· Right to buy back stock from an owner that files personal bankruptcy;

· Right to buy back stock from an owner that is found to be mentally incompetent [drug addictions, etc.];

· Right to buy back stock from an owner that fails to perform their assigned duties; and

A buy-sell agreement is a smart and effective means of short-circuiting ownership disputes before they occur. If your corporation consists of two or more owners, you should seriously consider putting an agreement in writing to avoid debilitating disputes.