I am, however, certain that it is not true that “no court case has ever turned on the presence or absence of such an automatic e-mail footer in America” since I worked on a multi-billion dollar patent case in which the court (later affirmed by the Fed. Cir.) kept out of evidence key — some might saying damning — e-mails of willful infringement largely because of the disclaimers. Specifically (and vaguely), the court found that unlike in most cases, where disclaimer language in e-mails between in-house/corporate counsel and a company is irrelevant since every e-mail is indiscriminately marked as privileged regardless of subject matter (a sort of Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus approach), the e-mails in my case, although they seemed prima facie to concern the sort of business matters not typically covered by privileged, had clearly been distinguished with a judicious use of disclaimer language from somewhat similar communications that were deemed not privileged.

And yes, the disclaimer is often done for the benefit of the wage donkeys, er, doc review attorneys, as well as for general record keeping.

another of the nonsense statements shot down by the EU and I think other countries as well.

Like footers that state that electronic storage of the message is not allowed, when having the message sitting on a mailserver waiting for delivery is electronic storage.
I’ve even seen footers claiming that “transmission over unsecured networks is not allowed” on emails I received over the internet (which is of course wholly unsecure).

d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”