Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

E-mail communications on Wall Street are under considerably more scrutiny than those traveling through the London financial industry, according to new survey results from e-mail compliance vendor Orchestria.

The survey conducted earlier this month questioned 300 people working on Wall Street in New York and in the City area of London. Sixty percent of workers in New York believed that their employers were in the right by monitoring their e-mail. In London, only 38 percent of respondents believed that that their firm was within its rights to do so.

That said, it was the New York-based financial employees that were more likely to try and dodge their firm’s restrictions on e-mail communications. Only 42 percent of London respondents admitted to sending something that they didn’t want their employer to know about, compared to 60 percent of those surveyed in New York. More than seven of ten workers in New York have received messages that would violate corporate or regulatory policy. In London, only 36 percent have flouted the rules.

Orchestria cites this disparity as a factor highly indicative of the growing gap in the regulatory environments of New York and London, the world’s two largest financial centers. Industry observers speculate that it is this gap that is leading many companies to remove themselves from American markets and list in London or other exchanges.

Do you think American regulations are a detriment to our country’s capital markets? Leave your comments.