Other Activities Related to Economic Law and Regulatory and Compliance Law

Watch the video commenting on the decision of the Commission des sanctions of the Autorité des marchés financiers – AMF (French Financial Market Authority Sanctions Commission). Read the decision. -   In 2015, a document supposedly emanating from the Vinci company reached the Bloomberg media announcing unexpected catastrophic results. The two journalists who received it immediately published it without checking anything, the Vinci listed shares losing more than 18%. It was a rude forgery, which a basic check would have established, a check which the journalists had not done. 4 years later, the Bloomerg company is punished for the breach to "disseminate false information" on the financial market, by a decision of the Sanctions Commission of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (French Financial Markets Authority) of December 11, 2019. The company being sued argued that it was up to journalists to be accountable and not to itself, because on the contrary the firm had implemented both detection software and a code of conduct, even though there was no legal rule constraining it. In consequence, it would not possible to pursue it. But the AMF Sanctions Commission stresses that, independently of this, it is a general rule of ethics for journalists that obliges them to verify the authenticity of the documents they publish, which they did not, whereas an elementary check would have allowed them to measure that it is a rude forgery. In addition, the Sanctions Commission refers to the European Regulation on market abuses which in its article 21 targets the special status to be reserved for press freedom and the special status of journalists, but associates this ethical obligation to verify documents . However, the Sanctions Commission notes that this obligation, which was targeted by both the journalists' ethics and the reference text of Financial Law, was completely ignored by the two journalists. It is therefore up to the press agency to be accountable and to be punished. However, the media entreprise maintained that the balance between the principle of freedom of the press and the principle of freedom of opinion on the one hand and the principle of the protection of the financial market and of investors against false information disseminated requires an interpretation of the European Union Law, which must oblige the Sanctions Commission to ask a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Sanctions Commission dismisses this request because it considers that the European texts are "clear", which allows the Sanctions Commission to interpret them itself. And precisely the European Regulation on market abuse in its article 21 provides for the exception in favor of the press and journalists but compels them to respect their ethics, in particular the verification of the authenticity of documents. In this case, they did nothing. They are clearly the authors of a breach attributable to the company. - In a less clear case, one could consider that this balance between two principles, both of public interest, is delicate and that an interpretation by the Court of Justice would always be useful. Indeed and more fundamentally, does Financial Law remain an autonomous Law, putting first the objective of the preservation of the integration of the financial market and the protection of investors or is it the advanced point of an Information Law protecting everyone against the action of any "influencer" (category to which Bloomberg belongs) consisting in disseminating inaccurate information (notion of "misinformation")? And that is not so "clear" ….   -

Watch the video explaining the content, meaning and scope of the decision made by the Conseil d'État (French Council of State) on November 15, 2019, La Banque Postale v. Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR). The Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution – ACPR (French Authority of prudential control and resolution) pronounced a very high sanction, representing 7% of La Banque Postale's net annual result. The breach is constituted by the fact of not having prevented the use of the banking technique of the "money order" which was used to escape the freezing of the assets. The Conseil d'État recalls that by nature if the assets are frozen, it is not possible that anyone is able to dispose of these assets. However, by the use of "money orders", persons targeted by asset freezing decisions, tools used in connection with the fight against money laundering and the fight against terrorism, had been able to circulate money to from accounts managed by La Banque Postale, of which they were not customers. This case was not foreseen at the time when the Bank Postale was sanctioned by the ACPR for not having prevented such a use, the texts forcing it under its obligations of "conformity" to prevent this behavior of violation background gels on the part of his customers, but only that. This case of a use of a means by a person who is not a customer of the bank was not foreseen at the time when the alleged facts took place and the Bank claims not to be able to be punished since in the repressive matter it is necessary to respect the principle of non-retroactivity of the texts, – in this case texts later supplemented to aim at such an assumption -, the non-retroactivity being a major principle itself related to the principle of the legality of the offenses and the penalties. We are therefore in the hypothesis of a silence of the texts. What to decide? Can the Bank be condemned and so heavily or not by the ACPR? The Bank does not think so.  It acted against this sanction decision firstly because those who used these money orders were not its clients. It has strong reasons to avail itself of this fact, since subsequently the texts needed to be modified to aim not only the use of this technique of money order by those who have a count in the bank and also by those who act with cash through the bank without a count, that is to say without an account holder to look at. Because we are in criminal matters, the restrictive interpretation and non-retroactivity of the text should lead to follow the reasoning of the Bank. But the Conseil d'État does not because it considers that implicitly but necessarily even with this subsequent modification of the text, it had aimed that use before. By this way, the Conseil d'Étatuncil develops a very broad concept of the obligations of banks in their role in the fight against money laundering, and therefore a very repressive point of view, which permeates their "obligation of Compliance". Thus, when the bank also argues that it can not be sanctioned since for it this activity of money order is  deficit and that it did not cause harm to its customers even by assuming badly its obligations, theConseil d'État stresses that this is not a pertinent perspective since the Compliance obligations falls within the "overriding general interest of protection of public order and public security, to which the freezing of assets legislation responds". -   Read the  judgment of the Conseil d'État ( in French). 

🌐 follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐 subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law - ► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Pour une Europe de la Compliance (For the Europe of the Compliance), series “Régulations & Compliance“, Dalloz, 2019, 124 p.  - This volume is the continuation of the books dedicated to Compliance in this collection. ► Read the presentations of the other books in the series: the following books: 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Les outils de la Compliance, 2021 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance, 2022 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, 2023 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche and M. Boissavy (eds.), 📕Compliance et droits de la défense. Enquête interne – CJIP – CRPC, 2024 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕L’Obligation de Compliance, 2025 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Compliance et Contrat, forthcoming 🕴️L. Laref (ed.), 📕Compliance et vigilance bancaire, forthcoming 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Le système juridique de l’adressage de l’Internet. Une structure multi-acteurs, gage de durabilité (The Legal System of Internet Addressing. A Multi-Stakeholder Structure, the Pledge of its Sustainability), forthcoming 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Le système probatoire de la Compliance, forthcoming   the previous books: 🕴️N. Borga, J.-Cl. Marin and J.-Ch. Roda (eds.), 📕Compliance : l’entreprise, le régulateur et le juge, 2018 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Régulation, Supervision, Compliance, 2017 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Internet, espace d’interrégulation, 2016 📚Read the presentations of the other titles of the collection. - ► General presentation of the book: This book is written in French. The topic is : “For the Europe of the Compliance“. See below its general presentation in English.  The political dimension is intrinsic to the Compliance Law. Indeed, compliance mechanisms consist of internalizing in certains companies the obligation to implement goals of general interest set by Public Authorities. These public bodies control the Ex Ante reorganization that implies for these companies and punish Ex Post the possible structural inadequacy of these compagnies, becoming transparent for this purpose.  This new mode of governance establishes a continuum between Regulation, Supervision, Compliance (book published in 2017) and renew the links between Companies, Regulators and Judges¹Frison-Roche, M.-A., Compliance, see.  This political dimension must be increased: the Compliance Law of Compliance must today be used to build Europe. One can observe not only the construction of the  European Compliance Law, object-by-object, sector-by-sector, purpose-by-purpose, but also the construction of the European Compliance Law that transcends and unifies them. Becoming independent of American Law and ceasing to be in reaction, even on the defensive, the Compliance Law contributes to the European project, offering it a higher ambition, that Europe can carry and, by this way, can carry the Europe itself, not only to preserve the European economy from corruption or money laundering, but by claiming the protection of nature and human beings. This is why the book describes the “reasons and objectives” of the Europe of the Compliance, which makes it possible to describe, detect and even predict the ways and means. - ► Understand the book through the Table of Contents and the summaries of each article:  🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Avant propos  🕴️K. Lenaerts, 📝Le juge de l’Union européenne dans une Europe de la compliance 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Un droit substantiel de la compliance, appuyé sur la tradition européenne humaniste   I. LES RAISONS ET LES OBJECTIFS D’UNE EUROPE DE LA COMPLIANCE (THE REASONS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE EUROPE OF THE COMPLIANCE)  🕴️X. Musca, 📝Construire une Europe de la compliance en donnant une meilleure place aux entreprises 🕴️P. Vimont, 📝La place de la diplomatie dans l’avancée d’une Europe de la compliance 🕴️P. Sellal, 📝Les vertus de la compliance : une réponse possible aux faiblesses de l’Union européenne ? 🕴️J.-J. Daigre, 📝Compliance, entreprise et Europe   II. LES VOIES ET MOYENS D’UNE EUROPE DE LA COMPLIANCE  (THE WAYS AND MEANS OF THE EUROPE OF THE COMPLIANCE) 🕴️J.-Cl. Marin, 📝Quels outils pour la construction du droit de la compliance en Europe ? 🕴️M. Canto-Sperber, 📝La compliance et les définitions traditionnelles de la vertu 🕴️T. Bonneau, 📝Compliance et secteur bancaire et financier en Europe 🕴️C. Duchaine, 📝L’Agence française anticorruption, à l’appui de l’Europe de la compliance 🕴️D. Martin, 📝Les contraintes et les vertus de la compliance 🕴️A. de La Cotardière, 📝Construire une Europe de la compliance lisible pour les entreprises -