The company records-retention policy instructs employees to discard development
ID: 398733 • Letter: T
Question
The company records-retention policy instructs employees to discard development records and test results for products five years after End of Life is declared. This policy is in compliance with local legal requirements. Because of the press of work you have not disposed of some old records, and they are a couple of years over the limit for the company policy. You finally get time to clean out your files, but you receive a legal request for any information about the old product that is involved in an injury case. Your records may or may not be applicable to the case.
Should you destroy the records?
Explanation / Answer
Before answering to the question, the stakeholders of the case needs to be analyzed. Here, the stakeholders are the Organization as a whole, the employee who is in dilemma about the destruction of the old records and also the aggrieved party to the injury case. Since in this case, the old information might of some relevant help to the old case, although the supporting documents may not have a legal validity to it as it does not comply with the local legal requirements. So if the employee reveals the storage of old files in the Department, the higher authorities may themselves initiate the order of continuing to preserve the same. Such information may offer a significant input to the injury case, and if need be, could also be presented in the Court of Law as an exception to the local legal requirements. So for the time being, the records need not to be destroyed but certainly informed about the same to the Higher authorities in concern with the injury case.