📝Le droit processuel, prototype de l'Obligation de Compliance (General Procedural Law, prototype of Compliance Obligation), in 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), 📕L'obligation de Compliance

🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn

🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

🌐subscribe to the Video Newsletter MAFR Surplomb

____

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Le droit processuel, prototype de l'Obligation de Compliance " ("General Procedural Law, prototype of Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance" 2025, to be published.

____

📝read the article (in French)

____

🚧read the bilingual Working Paper on the basis this contribution has been built, with  more developments, technical references and hyperlinks. 

____

📕read a general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published 

____

► English summary of this contribution : At first glance, General Procedural Law seems to be the least concerned by the Compliance Obligation, because if the entities  subject to it, mainly large companies, it is precisely in order, thanks to this Ex Ante, never to have to deal with proceedings, the path that leads to the Judge, that Ex Post figure that in return for the weight of this Compliance  Obligation they have been promised they will never see, any prospect of proceedings seeming to signify the very failure of the Compliance Obligation to (I).

But not only are the legal rules attached to the procedure necessary because the Judge is involved, and increasingly so, in compliance mechanisms, but they are also rules of General Procedural Law and not a juxtaposition of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Administrative Procedure, etc., because the Compliance Obligation itself is not confined either to Civil Law or to Criminal Law, or to Administrative Law, etc., which in practice gives primacy to what brings them all together: General Procedural Law (II).

In addition to this "negative" reason for the presence of General Procedural Law, there is also a positive reason, because General Procedural Law is the prototype for "Systemic Compliance Litigation", and in particular for the most advanced aspect of this, namely the Duty of Vigilance (III). In particular, General Procedural Law governs the actions that may be brought before the Courts (IV), and the principles around which proceedings are conducted, with an increased opposition between the adversarial principle, which marries the Compliance Obligation, since both reflect the principle of Information, and the rights of the defence, which do not necessarily serve them, a clash that will pose by principle a procedural difficulty in principle (V).

Finally, and this "prototype" status is even more justified, because Compliance Law has given companies jurisdiction over the way in which they implement their legal Compliance Obligations, it is by respecting and relying on the principles of General Procedural Law that this must be done, in particular through not only sanctions but also internal investigations (VI).

________