Accountability

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La responsabilité Ex Ante" ("Ex Ante Responsibility"), in Archives de Philosophie du Droit (APD), La responsabilité, t. 63, Dalloz, 2022, pp. 105-115 - 📝read the article (in French) - 🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks - ► English Summary of the article: Today, Law is faced with a strategic imperative: to turn its strength towards the future, to deal with issues (digital and climate) over which law and contract do not have the required influence, because they are too local or too unsystemic, while ex post liability is not adequate to deal with the irreparable. Responsibility therefore takes hold of the future, with the judge becoming the central figure in the world through no fault of his own. This shift in time may continue to be anchored in the past, as a result of commitments made by States or firms. But this responsibility for the future, giving rise to an obligation not to make reparation but to do something about it, may come even more directly from the mere fact that the entity in question is ‘in a position’ to act to ensure that others are protected. Pre-constituted evidence, ex ante office of the judge, duty for others, but also powers of the firm and State to bear this ex ante responsibility, pillar of Compliance Law, Law of the future, are the new rules that are being put in place. - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Ex Ante Responsibility, Working Paper, December 2021. - 📝This Working Paper has been the basis for an article written in French, "La responsabilité Ex Ante", published in the Archives de Philosophie du droit (APD), in the book 📗La Responsabilité (2022). - ►  Working Paper Summary: Quel est le temps auquel s'articule la responsabilité ? La question est si classique que toutes les réponses ont été dessinées : si l'on est responsable plus aisément par rapport au temps, car l'on peut alors plus aisément faire un lien entre la situation appréhendée, sa réalisation dans le passé la rendant plus facilement connaissable, et le poids de "responsabilité" que l'on impute sur une personne, l'on peut articuler la responsabilité avec le futur. Si l'on brise le poids de cette responsabilité avec un évènement ou une situation, par exemple. Le Principe Responsabilité de Jonas ou l'Ethique de la Responsabilité font ainsi voyager la Responsabilité dans le temps, par un rapport entre le Droit et l'Ethique.  D'ailleurs l'on pourrait soutenir que le Droit peut faire ce qu'il veut et imputer une responsabilité à quiconque pour le temps qu'il désigne, par exemple désigne comme porteur d'une responsabilité, c'est-à-dire d'un poids, celui qu'il veut. Le "responsable" serait alors le titulaire d'une sorte de "poids pur", qui le charge parce que le Droit l'a voulu pour le temps qu'il veut, par exemple un devoir d'agir pour que le futur soit dessiné comme le veut le Droit, alors même que le Responsable n'a rien à se reprocher dans le passé.  Mais les Cours constitutionnelle défendent un rapport minimal entre la Responsabilité et le poids que celle-ci fait porter une personne, fut-t-elle morale, gardant ainsi le lien consubstantiel entre le Droit et la Morale, la technique juridique de la Responsabilité ne pouvant équivaloir à celle d'un prélèvement obligatoire. Ainsi l'idée d'une Responsabilité Ex Ante est simple dans son principe (I). Elle est celle d'un poids juridiquement posé sur une personne soit par elle-même (engagement), soit par la Loi ou par le Juge sur une personne de faire quelque chose pour que n'advienne pas quelque chose qui adviendrait ou pour qu'advienne quelque chose qui n'adviendrait pas si elle ne le faisait pas. Mais les conditions juridiques pour admettre un tel poids alors même que le lien avec une situation passée serait brisé est plus difficile (II). On continue certes continuer à voir dans le futur le passé, ce qui facilite le voyage dans le temps, et fonda par exemple le contrôle Ex Ante du contrôle des concentrations. Mais l'on peut se briser même de cette facilité et regarder non plus le rapport entre le passé et le futur, mais le présent et le futur : ce que l'on sait déjà aujourd'hui du futur, ce qui met en jeu le rapport entre le Droit et la Science ; ce que l'on observe de l'emprise de la personne présente sur le moment présent, c'est-à-dire le Pouvoir, ce qui fait en jeu le rapport entre le Droit et l'Economie politique. Dans cette dimension-là, la contrainte de la Responsabilité Ex Ante est alors maniée par le Juge, dont l'office lui-même devient un office Ex Ante. Les pouvoirs obligés Ex Ante par une telle responsabilité maniée par le Juge étaient les personnes en situation de pouvoir, sont non seulement les entreprises, mais encore les Etats, qui perdent le privilège – partagé avec les contractants – de disposer juridiquement du futur, et notamment en leur sein le Législateur.  Une telle révolution, qui se déroule sous nos yeux, s'explique parce qu'il faut agir maintenant pour que le futur ne soit pas catastrophique. La science nous informe qu'il le sera entéléchiquement. Il est donc juridiquement requis de désigner des responsables, non pas parce qu'ils auraient fait quelque chose, la dimension Ex Post n'étant pas le sujet, mais pour qu'ils fassent quelque chose, la Responsabilité Ex Ante étant un élément central de cette nouvelle branche du Droit qu'est le Droit de la Compliance.   

► Full Reference: Ch. Lapp, "La compliance dans l'entreprise : les statuts du process" ("Compliance in the company: the statues of processes"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, pp. 141-150.  - 📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published - ► The summary below describes an article following the colloquium L'entreprise instituée Juge et Procureur d'elle-même par le Droit de la Compliance (The Entreprise instituted Judge and Prosecutor of itself by Compliance Law) , co-organized by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the Faculté de Droit Lyon 3. This manifestation was designed under the scientific direction of Marie-Anne Frison-Roche and Jean-Christophe Roda and took place in Lyon on June 23, 2021. During this colloquium, the intervention was shared with Jan-Marc Coulon, who is also a contributor in the book (see the summary of the Jean-Marc Coulon's  Article). In the book, the article will be published in Title I, devoted to:  L'entreprise instituée Juge et Procureur d'elle-même par le Droit de la Compliance (The Entreprise instituted Judge and Prosecutor of itself by Compliance Law ). - ► Summary of the article (done by the author): The Company is caught in the grip of Compliance Law, the jaws of which are those of Incitement (1) and Sanction that the Company must apply to ensure the effectiveness of its processes to which it is itself subject (2 ). First, the Company has been delegated to fabricate reprehensible rules that it must apply to itself and to third parties with whom it has dealings. To this end, the Company sets up "processes", that is to say verification and prevention procedures, in order to show that the offenses that it is likely to commit will not happened. These processes constitute standards of behavior to prevent and avoid that the facts constituting the infringements are not themselves carried out. They are thus one of the elements of Civil Liability Law in its preventive or restorative purposes. Second, the sanction of non obedience of Compliance processes puts the Company in front of two pitfalls. The first  dimension place the company, with regard to its employees and its partners, in the obligation to define processes which also constitute the quasi-jurisdictional resolution of their non-compliance, the company having to reconcile the sanction it pronounces with the fundamental principles of classical Criminal Law, constitutional principles and all fundamental rights. The processes then become the procedural rule. The second dimension is that the Company is accountable for the effectiveness of the avoidance by its processes of facts constituting infringements. By a reversal of the burden of proof, the Company is then required to prove that its processes are efficient. at least equivalent to the measures defined by laws and regulations, the French Anti-Corruption Agency (Agence Française Anticorruption – AFA), European directives and various communications on legal tools to fight breaches of probity, environmental attacks and current societal concerns. The processes then become the constitutive element, per se, of the infringement. Thus, in its search for a balance between Prevention and Sanction to which it is itself subject, the Company will not then be tempted to favor the orthodoxy of its processes over the expectations of the Agence Française Anticorruption – AFA , regulators and judges, to the detriment of their efficiency? In doing so, are we not moving towards an instrumental and conformist Compliance, paradoxically disempowering with regard to the Compliance Monumental Goals of Compliance? -

Among all the things that were important to remember, one of the things that struck me most in the extraordinary conference of the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union Koen Lenaerts on "Europe of the Compliance "held on March 2, 2018 was his ability to make" live Europe ". Not only to make it understand but also to make it "live". Here is the challenge: that compliance is not an accumulation of processes without reason and without flesh, but a living whole taking its meaning into consideration of the human being, a person whose judge is concerned. On 2 March 2018, Koen Lenaerts therefore came to an amphitheater at the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2) to inaugurate the series of conferences organized by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC), a cycle that has the general title: Pour une Europe de la Compliance (For the Europe of Compliance). The School of Public Affairs of Sciences Po, the Department of Economics of Sciences Po, the Ecole doctorale de droit privé  (Doctoral School of Private Law) at the Université Panthéon-Assas- Paris 2 (Panthéon-Assas University – Paris 2) and the School of Law of the University Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I), are associated with this cycle. Many personalities will take the floor. Presented by Professor Thierry Bonneau, the conference made by President Koen Lenaerts was extremely rich and solid, perfectly constructed. Everyone had known the quality of the conference to be delivered by the President of the CJEU. The content of his demonstration will be found in the article he will give for the book that will be published in the Régulations & Compliance Series edited by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche at Éditions Dalloz. And the reader will find all the strength of this demonstration. This is necessary to venture into this area of "Compliance" : Koen Lenaerts recalled that we were still looking for the definition and a French term that would do justice to a satisfactory definition¹Frison-Roche, M.-A., Compliance Law, 2016.. This question was echoed by Antoine Garapon in his discussion. Embodying the firmness that must be shown when words are uncertain, President Koen Lenaerts emphasized that the European Union is based on "Rule of Law". This means that the behaviors must respect Law. For that, – and that is why it is necessary to take in the literal sense the English expression "to comply with", the enterprise must not be passive but to make sure that its behavior is actually respectful of legal prescriptions. In this, there is a general paradigm shift, which inverses the relation betwenn the operator and the rules, from the Ex Post to the Ex Ante²On this passage, which internalises the "Regulatory Law" in the company, c. not. Frison-Roche, M.-A., From Regulation Law to Compliance Law, 2017, and the book, Régulation, Supervision, Compliance (Regulation, Supervision, Compliance), 2017.  as the entreprise has to be itself active to secure the effectiveness of the rule of Law. This internalization of the rule by the company develops both a procedural culture and a behavioral culture, in which companies can express an ethical dimension and build a "Trust Pact" ³About this notion, s. Frison-Roche, M.-A., Compliance and Trust, 2017 ; Drawing the Circles of Compliance Law, 2017. with states and public authorities. This change has been brought about by globalization, since states no longer have the means to impose ethical norms of behavior on businesses through the Ex Post intervention of their jurisdiction, but States like companies are gaining the benefit of this internalisation of rules in compagnies because the Compliance is inseparable from the accountability by which the company is compelled to justify that it actually tends to achieve the overall goals assigned by the public authority. Thus, after exposing the general movement by which Europe opened up to this upheaval, President Koen Lenaerts took on three technical dimensions crossed by this new conception. The first is the Financial Markets Law. The second is Competition Law, about which the President has notably developed the Court's reflections on whether the adoption of a compliance program by an enterprise found to have violated Competition Law, in particular by "negligence" is neutral, or constitutes a mitigating circumstance or constitutes an aggravating circumstance. This question was taken up after the presentation in the discussion with the room. The third is that of personal data. Taking again as in a waltz with three times his remarks, the president of the Court of Justice found that the compliance, whereas it consists in transforming the Ex Post into Ex Ante becomes juridicalised and in this the Court of justice holds its not only in Europe but also in relation to the world, without however ever forgetting that it is the States that are drawing up the rules that are the foundation of Europe. We will find in the article that will be published all these precious elements and no doubt that the elegance of the pen will be equal to that of speech. But, written exercise requires, the reader will not find what we had the chance to attend: the story of two cases by the one I would prefer to name the "Professor Koen Lenaerts". Two famous cases, which we teachers, comment and remind in our courses, that students learn and recite, quote in their copies. But never that way. The first case is the Schrerms case, where the court said that Facebook could not transfer this person's personal data to the United States since he was opposed to it. To make it clear, the President revived it through the litigant, who was a student and for this reason he spoke directly to the students present in the amphitheater. He pointed out that the plaintiff at the origin of the case was a law student, like them. He detailed his situation in Austria, making some quotes in perfect German, pointing out that this student was now at the doctoral stage, inviting students to be brave, as he was. At each episode of the story, the speaker told the students, making some detours on his own student life because finally we were all in family … Alma Mater. But his hands were telling the story even more: they were thrown themselves into the story, they brewed the space, it seemed as if they themselves were no more grandiloquent than the speaker but found their place exactly , in a magisterial position. Yes, here is a president in front of which companies have a hard time hiding the truth, a president with such firm hands and whose torso does not move but turns to the left and right to talk to everyone. The second story was even more beautiful. The Google Spain case, I know it. I even know it by heart. I read it, commented on it, cited it a lot of times … But all of a sudden that's what happened to a small Spanish merchant: President Koen Lenaerts told us his story, and I rediscovered the case. A small Spanish shopkeeper, whose name the speaker uttered in perfect Spanish, obtained from the Court of Justice that his "right to be forgotten" was recognized. President underlined the apparent paradox of his  insistence for the appearance of his surname in the judgment by which this person had thus obtained the erasing of his surname! Yes, I did not notice … Why did he ask for the mention of his name in the right to have his name deleted? Because it's a matter of honor. This is what the speaker insisted: do not joke with honor. And if you do, even Google will lose. The merchant had been subject to a forced property sale procedure because of financial difficulty, which spanish newspapers had echoed. His honor was been trampled. Then, by a happy return of fortune, he had recovered his property, his prosperity, his reputation. But from that, the press had not talked about it. Some lines in a newspaper of legal announcements, but that it is nothing for the human soul. That's why he wanted these mechanical digital links to disappear, which always and for all end up with articles presenting him as a wretch without ever ending up with articles presenting him as a prosperous merchant (because of the non-existence of these second articles). The speaker emphasized this dimension very much. And we know that the General Regulations that will come into force in May 2018 on personal data, which intrigues so much the Americans, draws in the judgment Google Spain its main solution in the matter: this "right to be forgotten" , subjective right so strange. He emphasized this dimension very much. And we know that the General Regulations that will come into force in May 2018 on personal data, which intrigues so much the Americans, draws in the judgment Google Spain its main solution in the matter: this "right to be forgotten" , subjective right so strange. Listening to President Koen Lenaerts, how not to think of Carbonnier? to  his articles of it, especially on sociological rule : "small causes, great effects"? From this conference, it will remain a great article, but as in the theater, where the ephemeral is part of the beauty of this art, what were these two stories, told by the one who knew how to listen when it was necessary to decide the two cases, stories told with the two firm hands that danced inviting students to enter this round, even as the President of the Court of Justice had to leave immediately to Luxembourg to hold such heavy obligations, yes it was simply beautiful .    

Translated Summaries ENGLISH Two and a half years after having been established by the LME, the French Competition Authority has uncontestably acquired its “place in the sun” amongst the competition authorities of other countries, as demonstrated by multiple indicators.   ITALIAN Articolo: L’Autorità garante della concorrenza tra “regolazione” e politica in materia di concorrenza Due anni e mezzo dopo l’instaurazione da parte del LME, l’Autorità francese garante della libera concorrenza ha trovato il suo posto tra le diverse autorità degli altri paesi, così come è stato dimostrato da diversi indicatori. SPANISH Artículo: La Autoridad de la competencia, entre “regulación” y política competitiva.   Después de dos años y medio de haber sido establecido por el LME, la Autoridad francesa de la competencia ha incontestablemente adquirido su “lugar bajo el sol” entre las autoridades de la competencia de otros países, como demostrado por varios indicadores. ………………… Other translations forthcoming.

► Full Reference: D. Bazin, "A Reading of the conception of man in Hans Jonas’ works: Between Nature and Responsibility. An Environmental Ethics Approach", Éthique et économique/Ethics and Economics, 2 (2), 2004 - ► Summary of the article (done by the Author): "We will study the conception of man in Jonas’ ideology through the lens of nature and of responsibility. He brandishes the specter of disaster (“heuristics of fear”) as a guard against technological excesses. He appeals to a prospective, universal and categorical responsibility to protect nature and to save future generations. Jonas considers responsibility as a method of anticipating the threat to that which is vulnerable, ephemeral, and perishable. Thus, the responsibility that Jonas decrees implies an ethics of conservation. Jonas’ writings aim to procure a new dimension of acting, which necessitates an ethics of foresight and responsibility." - 🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses -