Countries including Australia, Canada, South Africa and the U.K. are expected to be growth markets for e-discovery as new civil litigation regulations regarding privacy and disclosure are passed in those regions, according to a report released today by Gartner.

The market research firm said the e-discovery market is in a period of simultaneous growth and consolidation, a state that should last through 2011. Worldwide software revenue from e-discovery will total $1 billion by year-end, an increase of 25% from 2008 revenue of $807.6 million. Next year, the market is expected to top $1.2 billion, a 23% increase from 2009, says Gartner.

Gartner Research Vice President Tom Eid said in a press release: ““The December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP) in the U.S. regarding the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI) and passing of subsequent similar statutes in other countries, has really spurred market interest in e-discovery. This is prompting many companies to rethink their overall information management strategies, from the policy level to the implementation level.”

Gartner describes three market catalysts for linking business goals to IT risks, and the ability to manage both:

-  Transparency of business performance as aligned to governance, risk, and compliance regulations and subsequent organizational reporting.

-  Mitigating IT risk through the use of real-time and continuous controls monitoring for transactions, segregation of duties, application configuration, and master data

-  Preventing business failure through fraud detection, improved user-level and application-level security, and corruption.

“The Gartner report substantiates the growth that we have been experiencing over the last two years. We believe that eDiscovery will be a significant world-wide market for EMC.  With the robust capabilities that products like SourceOne eDiscovery – Kazeon offer, the Court’s expectations in regards to eDiscovery continues to increase, as well as the costs of eDiscovery missteps,” Karthik Kannan, Sr. Director EMC eDiscovery. “With multi-year case time lines, Corporate Counsel must trust that their eDiscovery provider is here for them today, as well as tomorrow.  Anything else only increases the potential liability and risks associated with eDiscovery cases.”