French court: employers can read employee e-mail.

• Position: E-MAIL - Brief article

A recent decision from the French high labor court (the our de Cassation Chambre Sociale) may allow a party in France to review a French employee's e-mails and electronically stored information (ESI) to determine whether the data is relevant to U.S. litigation, without the employee's knowledge.

European Union (EU) policies protecting personal privacy often conflict with U.S. policies, which grant litigants full and complete discovery of documents and ESI in U.S. court actions.

In France, a French corporation that cooperates in U.S. litigation may break the French Blocking Statute, data processing laws, and the EU Directive 95/46 on Personal Data, among others. French authorities, in fact, have prosecuted French citizens who attempted to comply with U.S. court orders for producing records.

French and EU law actually prevent a litigant engaged in the U.S. litigation discovery process from collecting employees' e-mails for litigation purposes, as well as viewing those e-mails to determine whether they contain relevant data.

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Legal experts say Bruno B. vs. Giraud et Migot (Cour de Cassation, Chambre Sociale, Paris, 15...