Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

By | 3rd March 2010

Chris Dale begins his report Millnet offer £10,000 of e-Discovery services for free  with Virgil’s phrase, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” which is commonly, if loosely, translated as “beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

If you have been abreast of recent economic developments, you will know that the Greeks are unlikely to be bearing any gifts for anyone just now. The poor things have been led by the nose ever since entry into the euro into believing that their Government can go on spending money without any idea how they are going to pay it back. We in this country should on no account be smug as our Government has been the most profligate ever and has racked up debts which will keep us all in hock for years to come.

Indeed, I came across one of those extraordinary statistics the other day which made me reflect how awful our predicament actually is. You may possibly remember the unmemorable Jacqui Smith, late of the Home Office, and her claim to recoup from the taxpayer the 88 pence cost of a new bathplug for one of the places she had decided she needed to stay for the better performance of her duties. Apparently, someone has worked out that Britain’s debt, run up by the Government of which she was such an undistinguished member, rises by enough every day to buy everyone in the world a new bathplug.

Well, that’s alright then! At least no one has come up with similar statistics on the prevalence of dodgy videos!

The Trojan horse story is well known. What may not be so well known is that a Trojan horse is also a “non self-replicating malware” beloved of the computer hacker. It appears to perform a desirable function for the user but instead facilitates unauthorised access to the user’s computer system. I am sure there is a parallel here with our current economic woes but I will come back to that on another occasion.

In the meantime, thank you to Chris for reporting the offer. The response has been huge and varied. We have taken on work from sources which have not used us before and have delivered Smart e-Discovery services to firms ranging from the largest in the country to some of the smaller specialists. What is more, we have been able to provide services to clients who, previously, might not have instructed us. For example we have been able to undertake processing in cases where there is a large amount of potentially useful data but not much money at stake, such as a dispute on behalf of a charity and on behalf of a company in Chapter 11 administration.

We intend to review shortly where we go next and will keep readers informed. For now, if you have data to be processed, do give us a call. If you fear Greeks bearing gifts, you might just miss out!


[The fearless can find more details of the offer on our web page:  Driving down the cost of e-discovery]