Societe Generale In N.Y. Fires 7 for E-Mail System Use

One week before the Starr report flooded the Internet, prompting corporate reprimands to employees who downloaded it, Societe Generale was dealing with its own problem related to unseemly electronic material.

The New York-based division of the French bank fired seven people Sept. 4 for transmitting inappropriate material over the company's e-mail system. The total of firings could rise to as many as 45.

The total volume of the material being transferred, combined with messages from the bank's global operations, caused the bank's Lotus Notes e-mail server to crash. Once the server crashed, a review of e-mail messages uncovered the material.

"We have a zero-tolerance e-mail policy," said a Societe Generale spokeswoman. "When looking at the message queue at the time, we noted electronic mail that was inappropriate and violated the company policy on e-mail."

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