Capture (of the Regulator)

Capture is a term usually used in economic theories and refers to the situation in which an institution, in particular the Regulatory Authority, loses its independence by the influence exerted by a third party on it. The extreme case of capture is corruption, whereby an operator appropriates the decision-making power of the public Autority. But capture by corruption is paradoxically not the most dangerous situation, although under Criminal Law, for it is the most visible and - if the whole economic system is not corrupt - this corruption can be combated, for example by the change of those who govern the regulatory authority. Capture is more problematic when it is insidious. Thus, the sector can capture the Regulator by compromise when the people who are in the companies are the friends of the people who are in the regulatory authorities, for example when they have at the time of their studies attended the same schools, or when they later frequented the same clubs, practiced the same sports, or else when they were in their careers went from regulatory institutions to business and vice versa by the way, through consulting or lawyers firms.

In addition, capture can be done not by maneuvering on men but on things. Indeed, to capture the Regulator , it is necessary but it is enough not to give him the information that he needs, or to give the bad information to him. The asymmetry of information increases the risk of the regulator's capture, which explains why the financial Regulator is particularly exposed. Thus, the more technical the sector is, the more likely it is that the Regulator will be caught (for example in nuclear matters, where defense secrecy is opposed to the very idea of information, without the idea of morality of humain beings ou the idea of corruption necessarily interfere).

However, if the Regulator is captured by the sector, the regulatory system itself collapses. The function of the Regulator is to control the sector on an ongoing basis, in order to take ex ante the appropriate norms  or issue an opinion in this respect and to punish in ex post the breaches that the regulatory body has been able to establish, but its capture prevents this office from being fulfilled. This is why the capture of the Regulator is the obstacle that annihilates the entire Regulatory system.