Case Study – Archives Discovery
November 17, 2008
Overview
The Company: Insolvency and Corporate Restructuring Firm
The Problem: The Company was appointed Administrator of a large transport business and continued to operate the business through to an eventual trade sale.
The Company required the packing, removal and detailed discovery of approximately 3,000 boxes of archives to support its administration activities and also in preparation for legal proceedings between the transport operator’s stakeholders.
The Solution:FileSaver was engaged to perform all aspects of the packing, removal and detailed barcoded discovery of records. The 3,000 boxes of records were removed in just one day and detailed discovery completed within 2 weeks. FileSaver manges the delivery and tracking of records for the purpose of legal discovery by the legal representatives of the various stakeholders. FileSaver provides ongoing storage, retrieval and archive help-desk services.
Case Study - Large Scale Archives Discovery
The Company
The Company is one of the world’s leading financial advisory, audit and tax service providers. It operates a division specialising in insolvency and corporate restructuring.
The Problem
In 2007, the Company was appointed Administrator of a large, multi-depot transport business. In the capacity of Administrators Appointed, the Company was continuing to operate the transport business through to an eventual trade sale.
The transport company’s record keeping was predominantly paper-based. Records were stored in one of its depots and filled any available space including above and around machinery, in workshops, and in multi-use storage sheds. The archives were in very poor condition with collapsing boxes and an absence of any central paper or electronic inventory.
The records needed to be properly organized to support ongoing internal operations, and for statutory compliance. Of particular importance to the Company were records including financial reports, board meeting minutes and those relating to the purchase and disposal of assets as these documents would be critical to the Company in its role as administrator.
The company recognised that it did not have the space, staff or time to adequately address the large volume of records with its internal resources.
The Solution
The Company chose to outsource the non-core task of archiving and, following a review of alternatives, engaged FileSaver to perform its Discovery service plus ongoing archive storage and retrieval services. Discovery included packing, removal, and preparation of a detailed barcoded inventory of the records.
Planning
The Discovery project was led by FileSaver’s Chartered and highly experienced insolvency practitioner.
Certain records were going to be critical to the Company in the performance of its role as receiver/manager, and also for use in pending legal proceedings between the transport operator’s various stakeholders.
As a first step and prior to commencement on-site, a critical documents register was established as a watch-list for records requiring special or urgent attention:
• Board meeting minutes
• Capital expenditure applications
• All documents relating to the purchase or disposal of assets
• Financial reports
Each of the transport operator’s divisions had always performed its own archiving. FileSaver contacted each of the divisions to obtain any available archive inventories. As might be expected, the inventories that could be obtained were highly variable in quality and the format ranged between paper registers to various electronic formats. The inventories were consolidated into a single database for use in the detailed discovery exercise.
As the transport business continued to operate under administration, the depot was subject to high truck and staff movements at all times. It was determined that the lowest cost and the least disruptive approach to the removal of the records would be to complete the relocation in as short a time as possible.
It was planned to remove the approximately 3,000 boxes of records in just one day and then perform the detailed discovery in the controlled environment of FileSaver’s Records Centre.
Packing and removal of the records
FileSaver provided all lifting and handling equipment, materials, staff and transport to perform the relocation.
The depot’s storage areas were ‘mapped’ so that the original storage location of the boxes could be marked on the respective pallets. The source location could prove to be useful in the discovery process in determining the age and assigning the divisional owner of the records and therefore the extent of discovery required.
Boxes that were in a satisfactory condition for transport were stacked on pallets and cling-wrapped. Loose records and boxes that were too damaged to allow safe transport were packed into new heavy duty archive boxes and stacked on pallets for transport.
As planned, the records were removed from site in four semi-trailer loads in one day.
Discovery
The single database consolidated from previously obtained archive inventories formed the basis of the discovery, and the critical documents register guided the extent of discovery required for each box of records.
Discovery commenced immediately the records were received at FileSaver’s Records Centre.
In the discovery process, records were treated as follows:
Critical documents as set-out above:- Files were to be individually barcoded and a detailed description entered into the database
Other records:- Boxes were to be barcoded and a description of contents to be captured including reference date and retention date
The Company was contacted progressively as critical documents were located and those of immediate use to the Company’s administration were promptly delivered.
The Discovery project was performed by a team of five specialist staff and was completed within two weeks of commencement.
The Company was provided with a detailed electronic inventory of all records including some or all of the following data fields:
File barcode; box barcode; brief description; detailed contents; date reference; contents range; retention date
The Company was also granted Internet access to FileSaver’s web enabled tracking system for the purpose of enquires and ordering.
The Discovery report provided the Company convenient access to records for the performance of its role as receiver/manager. The report also provided sufficient data to enable the Company to authorize secure disposal of obsolete records and thereby minimise storage costs.
Conclusion
By engaging FileSaver to deal with the extensive archives the Company could focus on its core insolvency services and make optimum use of its staff resources and specialist expertise.
The archives relocation and discovery exercise was completed in less time, with greater accuracy and at a lower cost and than could have been achieved by the Company using internal resources.
FileSaver continue to support the Company with archive storage, on-demand retrieval and help-desk services.