Decisions about document management pivot mainly around practical matters, commercial and public sector requirements, audit needs, etc, rather than specific legal requirements. However, sometimes the law facilitates pragmatic document retention (the Electronic Transactions Act is an example).

The public sector has its own document management legal requirements particularly in the Archives legislation and, soon, the Public Records Act. There are other statutory requirements for document retention such as under the Companies Act, and retention of tax records. In other cases there are industry-specific retention requirements.

In this paper we will focus on corporate governance aspects, then move to the Electronic Transactions Act and deal with document management in that context, as well as public sector record requirements.