Standard operating procedure · AD6B · Administration

Legal Hold Application

Transactional procedure owned by Records & Information Management in Administration. 5 numbered steps, 1 of them a person deciding and 4 of them agent work … more

Administration manual Service view

Procedure code

AD6B

Transactional

Rule versions in force

v2.4 · v5.1 · v1.0

4 governing rules stacked over it

In force since

2025-07-04

Earliest effective date across those rules

Last reviewed

2026-06-22

Latest review date across those rules

Rules approved by

Chief Records Officer

Rule health

4/4

0 under review · 0 superseded

There is no document register behind this header. The version, the dates and the approver names are read off the governing rules this procedure runs inside, which is the closest thing the estate holds to a document control record. Nobody wrote these procedures. There is no document library behind this page and no Word file anywhere in the estate. Every procedure below is generated from rows this platform already holds: the line and its ordered stations, the owning team and the person accountable for it, the policy items bound to that team, and the governance gates seeded against the function. The steps, the owners, the gates, the approvers, the dwell times and the volumes are read straight off those rows. The sentences that join them together are generated. Read a procedure as the estate describing itself, not as a document somebody signed.

Purpose and scope

What this procedure is for and where it stops

To run legal hold application to one repeatable standard inside Records & Information Management, part of Administration. more

Entry condition

Runs transactional. Starts when an upstream system posts an event.

Exit condition

The unit clears release, released by Chief Records Officer. more

In scope

Every unit of legal hold application raised inside Records & Information Management, from the trigger below through to the final step.
4 of the 5 steps, which run without a person present.
1 decision that stops the line until a named person releases it.

Out of scope

Anything outside the envelope set by the owning team. It leaves the line at a gate and becomes the named approver's decision.
Work that belongs to another function. This line hands off to legal and does not follow the unit there.
The 1 step carried on the shared AI GBS spine. They are done for this line but not by this function.

Who owns it

Runs the line

Records Orchestrator

Accountable person

Chief Records Officer

The end of the escalation path. Above them sits Administration Chief of Staff for the function.

That team’s remit

Owns record set work end to end inside Administration. more

That remit describes the whole team, not this one procedure, so its counts are larger than the ones on this page.

Autonomy

57% now · ceiling 68%

Classification and retention are automatable. more

The procedure, step by step

5 numbered steps · 1 of them stop for a person

A step is one station on the line. more

No.	Step	Who does it	What happens	System of record	Time on the step	In flight
01	Hold notice Agentworkflow	Classification Agent	Classification Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.Hands off to legal	Group ERP — Financials	1.8 hrsstandard 3.0 hrs	44
02	Identify custodians Agentworkflow	Retention Schedule Agent	Retention Schedule Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	IT Service Management	40 minstandard 1.5 hrs	41
03	Suspend disposition GBSgbs	Classification Agent	Classification Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Financials	8 minstandard 18 min	18
04	Attest Agentworkflow	Legal Hold Agent	Legal Hold Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Financials	25 minstandard 42 min	34
05	Release HumanpolicyDecision	Chief Records Officer Releases: Chief Records Officer	Work stops. Chief Records Officer reviews what the line has produced and either releases the unit or sends it back. Nothing downstream of this step runs until that decision is made.Holds until: Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the record set decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Financials	2.5 hrsstandard 4.0 hrs	5

The swimlane

The same steps, laid out by who is holding the work

Three lanes: a person deciding, an agent working, and the shared services spine. more

Person1 station and 45% of the dwellAgent3 stations and 52% of the dwellShared spine1 station and 2% of the dwell3 crossings between lanes

Human

decides

Agent

does the work

GBS

shared spine

System

attributed by rule

Group ERP — Financials

IT Service Management

Group ERP — Financials

Click any station to see who does it, what it costs in time, the rule that gates it and the system attributed to it.

Run the procedure

One unit walked along that swimlane on the happy viable agentified path

Press run and a single unit enters at station 01. Each station takes exactly the dwell this platform records for it and is held by whoever the estate says holds it. more

speed

worked clock

00:00

allowance clock

00:00

stations cleared

0/5

the happy path, worked time0 min of 5.5 hrs

the same run against its allowance0 min of 9.5 hrs

Human

decides · 1

Agent

does the work · 3

GBS

shared spine · 1

run log

Nothing has happened yet. more

where the worked time goes5.5 hrs a unit

Person2.5 hrs · 45%Agent2.9 hrs · 52%Shared spine8 min · 2%3 crossings between lanes

what makes this path viable

The lanes are the recorded lanes. 1 of the 5 stations stop for a person and every one of them still does on this run.
Every one of the 1 decision is still taken by the person who holds it. The happy path is that each one is released first time, not that it is skipped.
The owning team is held to a 68% autonomy ceiling and this run sits at 55% unattended, inside it.
2 systems are attributed across the stations, and 0 of them are connected. Nothing in this run has been watched executing against a real system of record.

what would have to change

One decision, held by Chief Records Officer. more

stays with a person

05 Release — The last decision on the line. Something on every procedure ends with a person, so this one is never offered.

what this run is, and what it is not

This is a run, not a forecast. more

Happy means nothing goes wrong: no station raises an exception, no gate sends the unit back, no rework loop fires and nothing sits in a queue between stations. more

The second clock is the allowance. more

A decision may be handed to the agent lane only if two things hold … more

The run reads the station rows only. more

What this run does not model: arrival patterns, contention between procedures for the same person, shift patterns, weekends, learning curves, and the cost of anything. more

Run it again, going wrong

The same unit, the same stations, broken the way the estate already records breaking

This is the same unit on the same stations, breaking. more

No break below was chosen. more

One play head, two tracks, the same scale. The clean run stops when it runs out of stations; the other one keeps going.

As written

5 stations, nothing waiting, nothing sent back

0 min of 5.5 hrs

now Hold notice · Classification Agent · 1.8 hrs

As the ledger has it

the same stations, plus 4 categories the estate already counts

0 min of 17 hrs

now Hold notice · Classification Agent · 1.8 hrs

personagentshared spinework the break addsnobody working it

What breaks, and where it is counted

No break below was chosen. more

What the two runs say together

4 counted categories land on this procedure. more

What this run cannot claim

These breaks are shown together on one unit so the shape of a bad day fits on one screen. more

The separation register records a duty conflict against a sub-function and a named post, not against one procedure. more

Two clocks run. Worked time is the sum of the time the work is actually being done … more

Roles and responsibilities

5 named parties

The responsibility grid is assigned by a rule, not lifted from a chart. more

Party	RACI	Steps	Duty	Escalates to
Records Orchestrator orchestrator	Runs the line	0	Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more	Raises to Chief Records Officer when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Classification Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 97% clean · 8% overridden	Responsible	2	Runs the repeatable portion of records & information management inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls.	Escalates to Chief Records Officer when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Retention Schedule Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 97% clean · 8% overridden	Responsible	1	Executes the records & information management step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.	Escalates to Chief Records Officer when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Legal Hold Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 87% clean · 16% overridden	Responsible	1	Holds the rules that bind every other agent in records & information management. more	Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.
Chief Records Officer person	Accountable and responsible	1	Holds 1 decision on this line. more	Accountable to Chief Records Officer for the decisions held here.

Decision points and escalation

1 places this procedure stops

05 · Release

2.5 hrs

Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the record set decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.

Chief Records Officer

Handoffs out of this procedure

Step 01 Hold notice passes the work to legal.

The rules this procedure runs inside

4 governing rules

Records & Information Management Decision Envelope

active

AD6-POL-200 · envelope · vv2.4

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the record set sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. more

Approved by Chief Records Officer · in force 2025-07-04 · reviewed 2026-05-31

Binds Classification Agent, Retention Schedule Agent, Disposition Agent, Privacy Redaction Agent

EU · UK

Records & Information Management Evidence Standard

active

AD6-POL-201 · evidence · vv5.1

Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. more

Approved by Chief Records Officer · in force 2025-10-24 · reviewed 2026-05-12

Binds Classification Agent, Retention Schedule Agent, Disposition Agent, Privacy Redaction Agent

APAC

Records & Information Management Escalation Rule

active

AD6-POL-202 · escalation · vv1.0

Escalation is mandatory when confidence falls below the floor, when two options sit inside the confidence band, or when a break condition on a ratified position fires. more

Approved by Chief Records Officer · in force 2026-04-13 · reviewed 2026-05-06

Binds Classification Agent, Retention Schedule Agent, Disposition Agent, Privacy Redaction Agent

APAC

Records & Information Management Autonomy Ceiling

active

AD6-POL-203 · ceiling · vv5.1

The ceiling for this lane is 68 on the platform scale. more

Approved by Chief Records Officer · in force 2026-03-01 · reviewed 2026-06-22

Binds Classification Agent, Retention Schedule Agent, Disposition Agent, Privacy Redaction Agent

EU · UK

Systems this procedure touches

2 named · 0 connected

System attribution is a rule, not a reading. more

System	Vendor	Domain	Criticality	Steps	Connection
Group ERP — Financials	SAP S/4HANA	ledger	critical	4	modeled
IT Service Management	ServiceNow ITSM	itsm	high	1	modeled

0 of the 2 systems on this procedure is connected to the platform, and none of the twenty-six in the estate register is. 2 of them are marked as taking a write back, which is a property of the system, not a live path from here.

How it performs

End to end

5.5 hrs

Summed from the time each step sits, standard 9.5 hrs — running at 58% of the standard.

Touchless

69%

Agent share

80%

A week

2,514

In flight

142

Effort a week

151 human minutes · 182 agent minutes

Volume multiplied by the time on each step. more

Assurance over this procedure

4 governance gates sit above it

The twenty-four controls and eighteen exception classes in this platform are held at estate level … more

Gate	What trips it	Who releases it	Clock	Waivable
Travel above $5,000 approval	Any itinerary exceeding $5,000 in total cost	Function leader	1 business day	No
Security-sensitive itinerary approval	Travel to any listed destination or any executive protection requirement	Security and Chief Administrative Officer	2 business days	No
Records disposition approval	Any deletion, destruction or retention-period change	Records officer and Legal	5 business days	No
Executive calendar displacement escalation	Any change that displaces an existing external commitment	Executive assistant	2 hours	No

Next to it on the same team

Records & Information Management

Classify to Dispose

AD6A

Subject Access Request

AD6C

Governance Position

AD6D

All of Administration

What this document is and is not

These procedures describe the modeled estate. more

Actions

What is waiting on a person

What one procedure document gives you, and what to check before you treat it as the standard.

151

named approvers appear across the library

Every decision point on every procedure carries a job title, not a queue. more

143

steps in the library hand their unit to another function

A handoff is where a procedure stops being one team’s problem. more

controls exist in the estate, and they belong to no procedure in particular

Controls and exception classes are held estate-wide. more

Operations

What this desk is allowed to start

A surface that only reports is not operable. more

Trigger and bound

A procedure document prints purpose, scope, entry and exit, the numbered steps with the actor on each, the roles and their RACI position, the swimlane, the decision points and escalation, the handoffs, the governing rules with version and approver, the systems by rule and the timings. more

Live observability

What the record shows right now

The whole library, by lane, so a single document can be read against the estate it came from. more

Current distribution

2,748 steps

Agent, inside the function1,38951%

Agent, on the shared spine85131%

Person deciding at a gate50818%

Is policy and strategy coming to fruition

Whether the written intent is holding here

Half. The document is complete and every actor on it is measured more

Not holding on the record

A procedure here carries a version, an approver, an in-force date and a last-review date. more