Videos
concluding lecture
► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, "The Future of Compliance", series Compliance, Centre Perelman, Brussels, 23 February 2026. - 🧮view the full programme for the series Compliance (in French) - ► English presentation of this concluding conference in the series Compliance : The future of Compliance: who knows what it holds? Anyone who practises and studies the texts, litigation, structures and behaviours will have to admit that they do not know what will become of what has emerged as a new branch of law. It is not easily recognised, probably for three reasons. Firstly, because the birth of a new branch of law is an unusual phenomenon, whose disruptive and regenerative waves are felt in all branches of law and other regulatory systems, accompanying and reflecting the new world we have already entered, whether we like it or not. Secondly, because it is unpleasant (especially if you are a professor…) to begin and conclude with the fact that you do not know. Thirdly, because it is not very marketable, and in today's large and growing "compliance market", it is not very smart, if you want to sell compliance products (whether they be algorithms, new services to be linked to the highest level of companies, specialities in law firms, new chairs in various schools), to say that you don't know. So the experts say they know. For my part, I meet many people who are "experts" and who are "knowledgeable". What is surprising is the diversity of their discourse, which casts doubt on the solidity of the projection, particularly on the meaning of words: for example, not only words that could be described as "new" (which we then try to anchor in old words) such as "compliance/conformity" and "governance", but also words that we are undoubtedly more familiar with, such as "commitment" and "responsibility" or "sanction", i.e. the very pillars of the matter. Why is this a cause for concern, apart from the fact that it is always better to know what we are talking about, rather than everyone talking in their own corner, for their own compliance corpus, for their like-minded friends, with the subject matter becoming increasingly siloed? Because the object of Compliance Law is the future. So, the future of this branch of law which its object is the future is by nature very uncertain. It will therefore be assumed in advance that not knowing the future is a major difficulty when it comes to Compliance Law, in that this branch of law is unified in that it is ex ante and its object is the future. The difficulty is neither of the same nature nor of the same magnitude when it comes to the legislator, the "regulator", the regulated company (calculating or political), or the judge faced with systemic compliance litigation. That said, in a first part, one can imagine the future possibilities for Compliance (because that is what it boils down to, given the number of candidates eager to seize the instruments of power that are the " Compliance tools"). It is not a foregone conclusion that this future will be governed by Law. The consequences could take care of that. Or the order given by the leader (Trump, for instance), and that would go down all the better as he states that he certainly does not care about human beings but that he wields the power of Compliance to restore the climate balance (through Chinese regulations): except to say that there is no unified Compliance Law. That there would be one for the climate and another for human rights. So what about the future consistency of European Law, which links the two in the CSRD and the CS3D? Particularly in value chains. The question then is: what will be the uniqueness of Compliance Law in the future? - In a second part, since we do not know how things will turn out, from omnibus to omnibus, from a government hostile to the Law to a government appealing to the Due Process, from case law to case law, from special law to common law, we must weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the various perspectives. There is never one perspective where everything is good and another where everything is bad, because in that case there would be no choice and no policy: it would be enough to have information, to be "rational" and to go for the right solution rather than the wrong one. Beyond general statements that a combination of compliance and ethics is welcome, which is not in doubt in the superb statements made in this regard, it is necessary to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the direction we may take. Firstly, there is the disappearance of Compliance Law, with the advantage of reducing the regulatory burden on those subject to it and the disadvantage of abandoning altruistic and global ambitions (these two Monumental Goals may overlap). Secundly, it could involve the creation of a global empire, with the advantage of a simplified American empire, whether extraterritorialised by the state or by companies and their governance or technology, with the advantage of a Western model and the disadvantage of the crushing of "mondialisation" by globalisation and the disappearance of the specific ambitions of States. Thirdly, it may be a contribution to a war between powers, particularly through the European DSA and the data war, with the advantage of European maturity in Compliance Law as an extension of Regulatory Law and the disadvantage that we could move from a war in the metaphorical sense (never use metaphors in Law) to a war. Quaterly, it could be a new rule of Law in which systemic companies participate in an alliance to achieve Monumental political Goals decided by States and political authorities, preserving systems for the future ("sustainability") so that human beings are not crushed by them but benefit from them. The disadvantage is that we have to relearn the Law, because although it has nothing to do with conformity, which is only an instrument, Compliance Law changes all branches of Law and requires the integration of other techniques, particularly political and technological ones. - In third part, in practice, we must strive in advance to reduce the disadvantages associated with the shortcomings of possible future developments in Compliance Law, just as we must strive in advance to increase the advantages associated with the qualities of possible future developments in Compliance Law. The disadvantage lies in the very nature of Compliance Law, namely its great power, because unlike Competition Law, it calls for and increases power. We must therefore counteract the prospect of compliance techniques, particularly those related to Information, being monopolised by those who only want to use them to consolidate or extend their power, laughing at Ethics and Monumental Goals. This means that supervision techniques on the one hand and a renewed role for judges on the other must be considered. The quality attached to possible futures stems from the fact that we could uphold a "Global Law" (reference to the work of Benoît Frydman, among others) and that, faced with the possible disappearance of Public International Law and the imperative preservation of value chains, particularly in the context of possible war, the alliance between supervised systemic companies and the political authorities in charge of the future of the social group that legitimises them may appear to be a legitimate, effective, efficiate and efficient system. - ⛏️Go further : 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law, 2016 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Conceiving Power, 2021 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Compliance Monumental Goals, 2022 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝The Birth of a New Branch of Law: Compliance Law, 2024 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law and conformity: distinguishing between them to better articulate them, 2024 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Complianceo Obligation, 2025 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation, 2025 - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Law & Art
