► Référence complète : J.-Ch. Roda, "Un an de droit de la concurrence dans l’univers numérique", Communication - Commerce électronique, n° 10, octobre 2021, chron. "Un an de..." n°11

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "Cette chronique se propose de faire un tour d’horizon de l’actualité du droit de la concurrence, appliqué au secteur du numérique. Plus exactement, il s’agit de dresser un panorama, nécessairement subjectif et partiel, des décisions, jurisprudences ou textes qui ont marqué l’actualité, en France, en Europe, mais aussi aux États-Unis, tant ces questions sont aujourd’hui globalisées. On en veut pour preuve les actions menées contre les plateformes américaines par des plaignants européens, devant différentes juridictions, avec aussi des décisions rendues par les autorités européennes à propos de comportements numériques qui s’avèrent aussi bien mondiaux que difficilement localisables dans l’espace. En procédant à ce tour d’horizon, on constate que l’actualité a été riche, non seulement sur le terrain de la pratique décisionnelle et de la jurisprudence, mais également en ce qui concerne la production normative. On envisagera alors les textes, puis les décisions et jurisprudences importantes, classées selon les types de contentieux, en droit interne, européen ou nord- américain. En somme, le but n’est pas d’être exhaustif : il s’agit plutôt de dessiner les grandes tendances du secteur.".

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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📝consulter une présentation des autres chroniques "Un an de droit de la concurrence dans l’univers numérique" de Jean-Christophe Roda :

• "Un an de droit de la concurrence dans l’univers numérique" (2023)
   
• "Un an de droit de la concurrence dans l’univers numérique" (2022)

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► Full Reference: Malaurie, M., Monumental goals of Market Law. Reflection on the method in Frison-Roche, M.-A. (ed.), Compliance Monumental Goals, series "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, to be published

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► Article Summary (done par the JoRC editor):  The analysis done by this article is about Competition Law, and the methodology needed to be adopted for the technical functioning of this branch of Law. Taking up the various economic and legal theories on this subject, conceptions which have succeeded and clashed, the author develops that the monumental goal of Market Law is to develop an economic environment favorable to businesses and consumers, then asks the question if it could integrate an ethical dimension and more broadly non-economic considerations, in particular humanistic ones.

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📘 see the general presentation of the book, Compliance Monumental Goals, in which this article is published

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► Full Reference: Frison-Roche, M.A., Le Droit de la concurrence : des choix politiques pour son état futur - rapport de synthèse - ( ("Competition Law: political choices for its future state - Conclusion") , in Claudel, E. (ed.), Le Droit de la concurrence dans tous ses états ("Competition in all its states"), special issue, Gaz. Pal. , 15 Sept. 2021.

This publication is in French, but the Working Paper which is the basis of this article is bilingual. 

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📅 this article follows the colloquium of the French Association Droit & Commerce in Deauville (France), the 25th  et 26th June 2021.

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✏️ It is based on  the bilingual Working Paper built on the notes taken during the colloquium for establishing the conclusion which has been provided.

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Article English Summary: All of these contributions on the issue of the "Competition in all its states" highlighted the choices available for what could be this branch of Law tomorrow: choice of a political nature between various possible definitions of Competition Law. 

In method, the main thing is that this definition be clear. For this, this definition must be based on a principle and that the goal pursued by competition law is simple, so that in a second step, competition law can be easily articulated on the one hand with other branches of law. (by the care of the judge, in particular), on the other hand with "policies", such as "competition policy", then other policies (by the care of political authorities, especially European).

In essence, two conceptions of principle are opposed: either Competition Law will want to appropriate the goals of other branches, such as those of Regulatory and Compliance Law, or Competition Law will have the modesty to remain anchored in its definition as Market Law.

This is the crossroads where we are.

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Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., Programme de mise en conformité (Compliance), Dictionnaire de droit de la concurrence, Concurrences, Art. N° 12345, 2021

Read the definition (in French)

► Référence complète : J.-Ch. Roda, "Le standard de preuve : réflexions à partir du droit de la concurrence", D. 2021, pp.1297-1303

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "Jusqu'à une période récente, le "standard de preuve", traduit de la notion de standard of proof des droits de Common Law, n'était connu que des seuls comparatistes. Aujourd'hui, ce concept a priori étranger a pénétré le système juridique français, par l'intermédiaire du droit européen de la concurrence : les autorités de marché s'y réfèrent régulièrement et, mécaniquement, le juge français aussi. Les "concurrentialistes" sont désormais habitués à croiser la notion, mais elle demeure encore fuyante : on se demande si son émergence n'est pas un trompe-l'oeil. Plus largement, la question se pose de savoir si la notion a un avenir et une réelle utilité en dehors du droit de la concurrence.".

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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 ►Full reference : Frison-Roche, M.-A., Conclusion ("Rapport de synthèse"), in Droit et Commerce, La concurrence dans tous ses états, Deauville, 25th and 26th of June 2021.

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📅 This event was initially scheduled for June 22 and 23, 2020, then due to the health crisis, it was postponed to March 27 and 28, 2020; it finally takes place a year later.

📝  Read the general presentation of the colloquium and the program.  (in French)

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► It is in its "Risk and Compliance" section that the Wall Street Journal, by its article of June 18, 2021 (➡️📝Europe's Chief Prosecutor Has 300 Cases on Her Plate Already), presents the first steps of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, since June 1, 2021.

This inclusion presupposes that it is through a Compliance Law perspective that this new body must be understood, in order to understand and anticipate its action.

►In this perspective :

➡️📧Frison-Roche, M.-A., European Public Prosecutor's Office comes on stage: the company having itself become a private prosecutor, are we going towards an alliance of all prosecutors?, June 2, 2021

➡️ 💬Frison-Roche, « Le parquet européen est un apport considérable au Droit de la Compliance » (“The European Public Prosecutor's Office is a remarkable contribution to Compliance Law"), June 14, 2021

I. AN ACTION THAT WILL FOCUS ON FIGHTING THE MEANS USED TO DAMAGE THE FINANCIAL INTERESTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The article of the Wall Street Journal takes the form of an interview with the European Prosecutor. Her responses also confirm the consubstantial link between European Public Prosecutor's Office and Compliance Law.

It is remarkable that she immediately says that she hopes the treatment of many cases, especially on healthcare and infrastructure sectors: "Our expectation is to have more cases, especially in the healthcare system, in public procurement, infrastructure, and also in agriculture ".

However, the 2017 European Regulation which established the European Public Prosecutor’s Office said that its "mandate" is to prosecute offenses affecting the "financial interests of the European Union", without being hampered by the cumbersome procedures for cooperation between States while these offenses are most often cross-border.

But one could think that, knowingly taking the means (corruption, money laundering) for the goal, the European Public Prosecutor's Office would immediately pursue not only the defense of the financial interests of the Union (admittedly financial interests damaged by corruption or money laundering) but these facts themselves: thus the European Public Prosecutor's Office works with the European Supervisory Authorities, in particular banking and financial authorities, which fight in Ex Ante against these offenses and prevent them.

II. AN ACTION THAT FOCUSES ON SECTORS NOT LEGALLY REGULATED IN EX ANTE BY SECTORAL REGULATORY AUTHORITIES

Moreover, it will be noted that the European Prosecutor is targeting three economic sectors which are not "regulated sectors" in the legal sense of the qualification, that is to say not monitored by a sectoral Regulatory and/or Supervision Authority: Health, Infrastructure and Agriculture.

Thus, the power of Regulatory Law, which relies in its Ex Ante, and its weakness, which derives from the pre-required existence of a sectoral Authority, is compensated: the action of the Public Prosecutor's Office is not limited to legally regulated sectors.

While Competition Authorities are mandated (➡️📅La concurrence dans tous ses états, June 25 and 26, 2021) to protect the competitive functioning of the markets, a Public Prosecutor's Office can deal with any infringement without having to determine a market.

For instance, Infrastructures don't constitute pertinent markets but can constitute fields for criminal activities, such as corruption or money laundering, justifying Compliance Law mechanisms. 

What the new European Prosecutor is aiming for, namely Health, Infrastructures and Agriculture, have undoubtedly been damaged both by the sole primacy of the Competition perspective and by a Criminal Law constrained by the difficult inter-State cooperation, even though they are not subject to a supranational Ex Ante Regulation.

The European Public Prosecutor's Office aims to directly improve this, through Entreprises acting in Health, Infrastructures and Agriculture. 

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► subscribe to the French Newsletter MaFR ComplianceTech®

► Compliance Law and Competition: for building, is it necessary to legislate ? Example of quasi-public interest judicial agreement: the French Competition Authority's Statement of June 3, 2021 on Facebook

The French law so-called "Sapin 2" of 2016, organized the "convention judiciaire d’intérêt public - CJIP" (Public Interest Judicial Agreement) which allows the prosecutor to undertake not to prosecute a company in returns for this company's commitments for the future. Is this mechanism reserved for this law, which only concerns corruption and bribery? The answer is often positive.

Is it so obvious?

Since the entity having the power to prosecute therefore always has the power not to prosecute. As the company always has the freedom to make commitments for the future. And everything stops.

News in Competition Law illustrate this. On June 9, 2021, as part of a transaction, the Autorité de la concurrence (French Competition Authority) sanctions Google (➡️📝 Communiqué of the Autorité de la Concurrence , translated in English by the French Competition Authority) , which has not contested the facts, for abuse of dominant position for having privileged its services in the online advertising services. Similar facts were alleged against Facebook. But on June 3, 2021, the Autorité de la concurrence (French Competition Authority) published a "communiqué de presse" (➡️📝statement translated in English by the French Competition Authority) saying that Facebook has, during the investigation, proposed commitments regarding its future behavior. It is remarkable that this statement on Facebook is published as an “acte de régulation” (regulatory act).

Yes, it is indeed an regulatory act about the future and structuring the online advertising area, internalized in this company which engages itself in its future behavior. With its statement, the Competition Authority invites the “acteurs du secteur” (actors of this sector) to make observations, for the development of what will be a sort of compliance program.

In these negotiations which are akin to a game table, where everyone calculates without knowing if they enter into a negotiation or a confrontation, the first game assuming that one shows more cards than in the second, it is indeed towards a kind of Public Interest Judicial Agreement that they are going with a Competition Authority which is both Judge and Prosecutor, concludes the agreement and, through a later decision, gives it force. Under the various legal qualifications, it is indeed the same general mechanism of Compliance Law, well beyond the specific French law known as Sapin 2.

Managed in this way, Compliance Law being an Ex Ante corpus, transforms the Competition Authority, an Ex Post Authority, into an Ex Ante Authority, openly taking "acte de régulation" (Regulatory Act), and allows it to rely on the power of companies, thus “committed”, to structure markets, which are however not regulated. Like advertising or retailing areas (➡️📝see Frison-Roche, M.-A., From Competition Law to Compliance Law: Example of French Competition Authority's decision on central purchasing body in mass distribution, 2020).

Thus Compliance Law has achieved the autonomy of Regulatory Law with regards to the notion, which nevertheless seemed intimate to it, of "sector".

► register to the French Newsletter MaFR ComplianceTech®

► Full Reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A. (ed.), Compliance Tools, series "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) & Bruylant, 2021.

This book in English is the first title of this collection integrally dedicated to Compliance Law, in that it is the extension of Regulation Law. 

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📚  Read the titles of this series in English co-published by Bruylant. 

📚   This collection in English is articulated with a collection co-published between the Journal of Regulation & Compliance and Dalloz.

📕Thus, in parallel, a book in French, Les Outils de la Compliance is published. 

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📅   This book is published after a  cycle of colloquiums organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Partners Universities.

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► General Presentation of the collective book: The political dimension of Compliance Law lies in the goals it aims to achieve. To achieve them, the concern for these goals is internalized in "crucial operators", which may be obliged to concretize "monumental goals" set by public authorities. These public bodies control the Ex Ante reorganization that this implies for these companies and sanction Ex Post the possible inadequacy of the companies, which have become transparent to this end. The effectiveness and efficiency of this internalization, without which the statement of these goals is worth nothing, is based on the Compliance tools that are deployed.

These appear to be very diverse but their substantial unity (topic which will be the subject of a forthcoming book) makes it possible to study the tools put in place from a unique perspective, by not isolating them in a particular branch of Law, Criminal law or International Law for example, but by measuring what is common to them, notably Anticipation, Trust, Commitment, Responsibility, Incentive, and so on. If the Compliance tools vary, it is rather not only according to the sectors, finance and banking appearing then as the advanced point of the general Compliance Law, for example in environmental matters, but also according to the countries and the cultures. It is in fact about them that legal cultures seem to oppose.

The book aims to understand these "tools" by going beyond the description of each instrument, for which we already have many monographs, for analyzing them through the issues of Risks, required Expertises, Training. Sovereignty claims, Incentives, mechanical aptitude of Technologies. It is through these themes that are analyzed by the authors, experts in the field, what we always want to understand better: Compliance Programs, Whistle blowing, Mapping, Sanctions, Extraterritoriality, etc.

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Read the summary of the book. 

Read the foreword, summarizing all the contributions.  

Présentation of the book contributions:

📝Amico, Th., Compliance or the passage from ex post to ex ante: A Copernican revolution for the criminal lawyer?

📝Banck, A., The maturity of the Compliance tool’s user, first criterion of the choice of the salient tool

📝Burlingame, Coppens R., Power, N, Lee, D.H., Anti-Corruption Compliance: Global Dimension of Enforcement and Risk Management

📝Calandri, L., Incentive(s) and Self-Regulation(s): which place for Compliance Law in the Audiovisual Sector? 

📝Causse, H., Compliance Training: Through and Beyond Traditional Legal Training

📝Frison-Roche, M.-A., Describing, designing and correlating Compliance Tools to have a better use of it

📝Frison-Roche, M.-A., Building by Law the Unicity of Compliance Tools from the Definition of Compliance Law by its "Monumental Goals"

📝Frison-Roche, M.-A., Drawing up Risk Maps as an obligation and the paradox of the "Compliance risks" ​

📝 Frison-Roche, M.-A., Incentives and Compliance, a couple to propel

📝 Frison-Roche, M.-A., Resolving the contradiction between sanctions and incentives under the fire of Compliance Law

📝 Frison-Roche, M.-A., Rights, primary and natural Compliance tools

📝 Frison-Roche, M.-A., Training: content and container of Compliance Law​

📝 Galland, M., The Regulator's Inspection of the Effectiveness of the Compliance Tools Implemented by the Company

📝 Granier, C., The Normative Originality of Compliance by Design

📝 Guillaume, N., Compliance risk mapping: first insights of challenges, limits and good practices

📝Guttierez-Crespin, A., Audit of Compliance Systems​

📝 Koenigsberg, S. and Barrière, F., The Development of Attorney's Compliance Expertise

📝 Larouer, M., The Manifestation of Incentives Mechanisms in French Compliance Law

📝 Merabet, S., Morality by Design

📝 Pailler, L., Technological Tools, Compliance by Design and GDPR: the Protection of Personal Data from Design

📝 Racine, J.-B., Geographical dominance in the choice and the use of Compliance Tools. Introductory remarks

📝Rapp, L., Incentive Theory and Governance of Space Activities

📝 Roda, J.-C., Compliance by design in antitrust: between innovation and illusion

📝 Salah, M., Conception and Application of Compliance in Africa

📝 Tardieu, H., Data Sovereignty and Compliance

📝 Thouret, T., Training and Compliance, Two Correlated Information Transmission Tools

Full Reference : Akman, P., A web of Paradox: Empirical Evidences on Online Platform Users and Implications for Competition and Regulation in Digital Markets, Paper, June 2021.

Abstract (done by the author) :This article presents and analyses the results of a large-scale empirical study in which over 11,000 consumers from ten countries in five continents were surveyed about their use, perceptions and understanding of online platform services. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first cross-continental empirical study on consumers of online platform services of its kind. Among others, the study probed platform users about their multi-homing and switching behaviour; engagement with defaults; perceptions of quality, choice, and well-being; attitudes towards targeted advertising; understanding of basic platform operations and business models; and, valuations of ‘free’ platform services. The empirical evidence from the consumer demand side of some of the most popular multi-sided platforms reveals a web of paradoxes that needs to be navigated by policymakers and legislatures to reach evidence-led solutions for better functioning and more competitive digital markets. This article contributes to literature and policy by, first, providing a multitude of novel empirical findings and, second, analyzing those findings and their policy implications, particularly regarding competition and regulation in digital markets. These contributions can inform policies, regulation, and enforcement choices in digital markets that involve services used daily by billions of consumers and are subjected to intense scrutiny, globally. 

Lire le document de travail.

► Référence complète : P. Reis, "La concurrence", in J.-B. Racine (dir.), Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, LGDJ, coll. "Droit & Économie", 2020, pp. 133-151

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, dans lequel cet article est publié 

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► Résumé de l'article : 

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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► Référence complète : C. Del Cont, "La responsabilité", in J.-B. Racine (dir.), Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, LGDJ, coll. "Droit & Économie", 2020, pp. 631-653

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, dans lequel cet article est publié 

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► Résumé de l'article : 

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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► Référence complète : J.-Ch. Roda, "Le marché", in J.-B. Racine (dir.), Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, LGDJ, coll. "Droit & Économie", 2020, pp. 493-512.

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, dans lequel cet article est publié

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📚consulter la présentation des autres ouvrages de cette collection, fondée et dirigée par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., Facebook: Quand le Droit de la Compliance démontre sa capacité à protéger les personnes (Facebook: When Compliance Law proves its ability to protect people), interview with Olivia Dufour, Actu-juridiques Lextenso, 23rd of November 2020

Read the interview (in French)

Read the news of the Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation about this question

Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., From Competition Law to Compliance Law: example of French Competition Authority decision on central purchasing body in Mass Distribution, Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation, 27th of October 2020

Read by freely subscribing the other news of the Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance

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Summary of the news: Through its decision of 22nd of October 2020, the Autorité de la concurrence (French Competition Authority) accepted the commitments proposed by retail sector's firms Casino, Auchan, Metro and Schiever so that their agreement by which a common body centralizes purchases from numerous retailers, allowing each to offer these products under private label, is admissible with regard to competitive requirements. 

In this particular case, the Authority had self-sized in July 2018, estimating that such a purchase center could harm competition, opening immediately a large consultation on the terms of the contract. In October 2018, the law Egalim permitted to the Authority to take temporary measures to suspend such a contract, what the Authority did from September. 

The convention parties' firms committed on the one hand to update their contract limiting the power on suppliers, especially small and very small suppliers, excluding totally of the field of the contract some kind of products, especially food products and reducing the share of bought products volume dedicated to their transformation in distributor brand. 

The Autorité de la concurrence accepts this proposal of commitments, congratulates itself of the protection of small suppliers operating like that and observe the similarity with the contract consisting in a purchase center between Carrefour and Tesco, which will be examined soon. 

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We can draw three lessons of this innovating decision, which could be a model for after: 

1. The technique of Compliance Law permits to the Autorité de la concurrence to find a reasonable solution for the future. 

• Indeed, rather than punishing much later by a simple fine or to annihilate the performing mechanism of the purchase center, the Authority obtains contract modifications. 
• The contract is structured and the obtained modifications are also structural. 
• The commitments are an Ex Ante technique, imposed to operators, for the future, in an equilibrium between competition, operators and consumers protection and the efficacy of the coordination between powerful operators. 
• The nomination of a monitor permits to build the future of the sector, thanks to the Ex Ante nature of Compliance Law. 

2. The retail sector finally regulated by Compliance technics.

• "Distribution law" always struggle to find its place, between Competition law and Contract Law, especially because we cannot consider it as a common "sector". 
• The Conseil constitutionnel (French constitutional court) refused a structural injunction power to the authority because it was contrary to business freedom and without any doubt ethics of business is not sufficient to the equilibrium of the sector.
• Through commitments given against a stop of pursuits relying on structuring contracts, it is by Compliance law that a Regulation law free of the condition of existence of a sector could leave.

3. The political nature of Compliance law in the retail sector

• As for digital space, which is not a sector, Compliance law can directly impose to actors imperatives that are strangers to them. 
• In the digital space, the care for fighting against Hate and for protecting private life; here the care for small and very small suppliers. 

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See in counterpoints the pursuit of a contentious procedure against Sony, whose the proposals of commitments, made after a public consultation, were not found satisfying.

To go further, on the question of Compliance law permitting through indirect way the rewriting by the Conseil of a structuring contract (linking a platform created by the State to centralize health data with an American firm subsidy to manage them).

Full reference: Petit, N., Droit européen de la concurrence, 3rd edition, Collection "Précis Domat Droit Public/Droit privé", LGDJ-Lextenso, 2020

Read the forth of cover (in French)

Read the table of contents (in French)

Résumé de la leçon : Le Droit de la Régulation a eu beaucoup de mal à trouver sa place dans le système juridique, oscillant entre le Droit de la concurrence et le Droit public. Cette difficulté laisse des traces. Les difficultés à situer le Droit de la régulation dans le système juridique rejoint les difficultés de définition qu'il rencontre. Ces difficultés sont aujourd'hui accrues par les espérances de "Régulation du numérique", avatar des réflexions sur les désirs de "Régulation de la mondialisation", certains estimant qu'il faut construire une concurrence effective dans cet espace-là, tandis que d'autres affirment que la solution est une reprise en main des Etats. Trois définitions du terme "Régulation" sont effectivement  actuellement actifs dans le Droit de la Régulation.

La première définition du Droit de la Régulation vise la Régulation comme "Voie vers la concurrence". Certains limitent le Droit de la Régulation à cela, la concurrence étant alors comme son "idéal", certes sans cesse retardé, son Graal.  Cela conduit à une application technique des règles qui posent la concurrence en principe, et non pas en son exception. Cela implique une méthodologie en matière d'interprétation des textes.  La deuxième définition du Droit de la Régulation vise la Régulation comme mécanisme "adjacent" à un système concurrentiel, ce qui conduit à surestimer parfois ce qui ne sont que des insertions adjacents de mécanismes de droit de la concurrence dans des secteurs économiques par principes régulés. Ainsi et pour prendre un exemple les mécanismes techniques constituant des monopoles économiquement naturels sont régulés, tandis que tous les autres comportements ou structures du secteurs relèvent de l'ordinaire, c'est-à-dire du Droit de la concurrence, qui constitue le "Droit commun". La question qui peut alors se poser est le régime juridique des contrats d'accès aux facilités essentielles, lesquelles ne sont pas le seul apanage des réseaux de transport. Les enjeux de qualification sont ici préalables et majeurs.  Dans la troisième définition du Droit de la Régulation, la Régulation peut se définir non plus en perspective mais en part égale voire en préférence à la concurrence, lorsque des raisons de durée, confiance, dangers, risques, conduisent à concevoir la Régulation comme un équilibre instable et durable entre le principe de concurrence entre d'autres principes, un équilibre entre le principe de concurrence et d'autres soucis. Il peut s'agir de principes que la technicité même de l'objet requiert mais cela peut être aussi que le regarde qui est porté sur cet objet lui fait porter : par exemple le souci de soin que l'on fait porter au médicament, le souci d'inclusion que l'on fait porter à la banque, le souci de chaleur partagée que l'on fait porter à l'électricité, le souci de civilisation, que l'on fait porter à une entreprise, où que l'on voit à travers un bien marchand mais dans lequel l'on a injecte un "droit de propriété intellectuelle" qui est lui-même un instrument de Régulation. Là encore, la propriété intellectuelle comme instrument de Droit de Régulation est un enjeu majeur, et cela plus que jamais. 

Mais qui est légitime à porter ce regard juridiquement créateur : le juge ? l'entreprise (socialement responsable) ? le législateur national ? l'organisme international ? Ou bien, parce que ce sont des "choix", un politique, mis à cette position de choisir par le Peuple ? 

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Consulter les slides servant de support à la Leçon

Accéder au Plan général du Cours de Droit commun de la Régulation.

Se reporter à la présentation générale du Cours de Droit commun de la Régulation.

Consulter le Dictionnaire bilingue du Droit de la Régulation et de la Compliance.

Consulter la Bibliographie générale du Cours de Droit commun de la Régulation

Consulter la bibliographie ci-dessous, spécifique à cette Leçon relative au Droit de la Régulation dans la perspective de la Concurrence

► Référence complète : L.-M. Augagneur, "Les aspects relatifs à la circulation des données dans les programmes de conformité en droit de la concurrence", in J.-Ch. Roda (dir.), Compliance et droit de la concurrence : nouveaux défis, nouveaux enjeux, Revue internationale de la compliance et de l'éthique des affaires, n° 3, juin 2020, étude 111, pp. 21-25.

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "The risk assessment of antitrust practices involving datas could be uncertain in consideration of the increasing production and circulation of datas, their algorithmic use, and the intricate operation of the concerned markets. Far from being limited to a standard system or technology solutionism, relevant compliance programs should rely on the own advocacy policy of the firm. This policy can be designed by identifying competition key factors and habits implemented throughout the data’s life cycle." (traduction libre : "L'évaluation des risques liés aux pratiques antitrust impliquant des données pourrait être incertaine compte tenu de la production et de la circulation croissantes des données, de leur utilisation algorithmique et du fonctionnement complexe des marchés concernés. Loin de se limiter à un système standard ou à un solutionnisme technologique, les programmes de conformité pertinents devraient s'appuyer sur la politique de défense des intérêts de l'entreprise. Cette politique peut être conçue en identifiant les facteurs clés de la concurrence et les habitudes mises en œuvre tout au long du cycle de vie des données.")

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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► Référence complète : J.-Ch. Roda, "Compliance et antitrust. Le discours de la méthode", in J.-Ch. Roda (dir.), Compliance et droit de la concurrence : nouveaux défis, nouveaux enjeux, Revue internationale de la compliance et de l'éthique des affaires, n° 3, juin 2020, étude 109, pp. 11-15.

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "The discourses of the competition authorities are essential for the dissemination of the compliance culture. Their comparative analysis reveals significant divergences that may explain the differences in compliance adherence." (traduction libre : "Les discours des autorités de concurrence sont essentiels pour la diffusion d'une culture de compliance. Leur analyse comparative révèle des divergences significatives, qui peuvent expliquer les différences d'adhésion à la compliance.")

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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Full reference: White Paper on Leveling the Playing Field as Regards Foreign Subsidies adopted by European Commission on 17th of June 2020, 49p.

Read the report

This working paper is the basis for an article in the French Law Journal Le Clunet.

When we compare the terms "Compliance" and "Extraterritoriality", it is often with dissatisfaction, even anger and indignation. On the momentum, after having expressed a principle of disapproval of such a merger, attention is focused on how we can fight against it, to break the link between Compliance and Extraterritoriality. But do we have to go so fast? Is this negative initial assessment correct?

Indeed, thus gone, it is frequently explained that the binding mechanisms of Compliance are suffered, that they come from abroad!footnote-1750, that they apply with efficiency but in an illegitimate way, without agreement of the one who must submit to it, whose resistance is therefore certainly ineffective but nevertheless justified. In the same spirit, when we start to shell the cases, like so many scars, sort of rosary, even crown of thorns, BNPP case!footnote-1718, Astom case!footnote-1717, etc., the wounds not yet closed turn into reproaches made against the rules, public authorities, even reproaches made against named people.

We are leaving this kind of complaint against X, which targets what would be this appalling "Compliance", this Law which would be both hostile and mechanical which would not have been able to stay within the limits of borders, Compliance being thus placed in contrast to sovereignty and protection, which presuppose staying within its limits!footnote-1716 and being able to protect companies from abroad. More concretely, this presentation targets more directly the United States, which uses "the legal weapon", slipped under what is then designated as "the artifice of the Law" with extraterritorial scope. But this effect would in reality be the very object of the whole: their hegemonic will to better organize at least a global racket, notably through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and at best a world government through notably the embargoes.Those who believed otherwise would be naive or foolish. This silences the opponents because who likes this costume? So the world would be put in a ruled cut; what the mafia could not have done, Compliance Law would have obtained, offering the whole world to the United States thanks to the extraterritoriality of its national Law.

Compliance Law would thus become the very negation of Law, since it has the effect, even the purpose (barely concealed by strategic, powerful and shameless States), of counting borders for nothing, whereas Public International Law, in that it is built between the sovereign subjects of law that are the States presupposes the primary respect for borders to better exceed them while Private International Law takes the same postulate to better welcome foreign Law in situations presenting a foreign element!footnote-1726. Jurists believed in the force of Law; by Compliance, we would return to the sad reality that only the powerful, here the United States, dominate and - ironically - it is under the pretext of Law that they do it. It would be necessary to be well duped, or accomplice, to see there still legal where there is only the balance of powers. When one is more intelligent or skilful than that, one understands that the "small" can only be "subject" to the Compliance Law, one would have to be powerful to be the normative source and its enforcement agent. It is then towards this mis-named Department of Justice (DoJ) that the fearful, hateful and resigned glances turn. 

If you see it that way, what should you do then? The answer is obvious: react!

It is necessary to save the sovereignty, France, companies, the Law itself. If that is how the question is posed, how can we disagree? It is therefore necessary to destroy the Compliance Law and the extra-territoriality of American Law which had found this "Trojan horse", an expression so frequently used. This is the basis for the administrative reports available, for example the Berger-Lellouche!footnote-1719 parliamentary reports and the Gauvainfootnote-1720 report. Both of them broadly develop the two preceding claims, namely that the extra-priority of compliance mechanisms is illegitimate and harmful, since it is a mechanism invented by the Americans and harming the Europeans, or even invented by the Americans to harm Europeans, the description being made in much more violent terms than those used here. The description seems acquired, the reflections therefore relate to the remedies. The reaction is most often to "block" the Compliance Law in its extraterritorial effect.

But without discussing the effectiveness of the remedies proposed downstream, it is necessary to return to this description so widely shared made upstream. Because many elements on the contrary lead to affirm that ComplianceLaw first of all and by nature can only be extraterritorial and that it must be. Whether or not the State in which it was created has malicious intentions. The description which is made to us most often describes particular cases from which we draw generalities, but we cannot reduce Compliance Law to the already cooled cases, as BNPP case, or to the always hot case of the American embargo on Iran. Furthermore, one cannot take the issue of embargoes and draw conclusions, legitimate for it, but which would apply to the whole of Compliance Law. The fact that theCompliance Law is a branch of Law at the stage still of emergence can lead to this confusion which consists in taking the part for the whole, but it is very regrettable because what is justified for the embargoes does not is in no way relevant for all Compliance Law, of which precisely the Law of embargoes is only a small part, even an abusive use. This overlapping is not often perceived, because the definition of Compliance Law and its criterion are not clearly enough defined, namely the existence of a "monumental goal"!footnote-1725, which does not exist in an embargo decided unilaterally by an order decreed by the President of the United States, but which exists in all other cases and fully justifies extraterritoriality, extraterritoriality which is even consubstantial with Compliance Law (I).

Once we have distinguished the embargoes, as an atypical, sometimes even illegitimate part, of Compliance Law, we should continue this work of distinction by emphasizing that the United States has certainly invented Compliance Law!footnote-1721 but only developed a mechanical concept for the prevention and management of systemic risks. Europe has taken up this systemic conception of the protection of systems, for example financial or banking, but superimposed another conception, drawing on its deep humanist tradition!footnote-1722, whose protection of personal data is only an example and whose monumental goal is the protection of the human being. This primary concern then justifies the European use of Compliance mechanisms to interfere with global objects regardless of their location, especially the environment, and to block the entry onto the ground of objects that enter, which is contrary to Competition Law but builds a legitimate barrier under this Compliance Law, in the indifference of an extraterritorial origin (II).

Indeed, this branch of the new Law which is Compliance Law is not reducible to Competition Law!footnote-1723, any more than it is not reducible to a method. It is a substantial, extraterritorial Law because the "monumental goals" which give it substantial unity are extraterritorial. This can directly contribute to the future of a Europe which on the one hand will be able to pursue, in an extraterritorial manner, monumental humanist goals, in the field of the environment or the protection of personal information or access to the Law (in particular by the technique of compliance programs) and which, on the other hand, by the techniques of traceability of products!footnote-1724, will have the means not to bring in products manufactured in an indecent manner, except in countries which do not grant value than in Competition Law to enter the WTO.

Read the developments below.

Full reference: ARAFER, Opinion n°2019-083 relatif aux projets de décrets approuvant les statuts de la société nationale SNCF, de la société SNCF Réseau, de la filiale mentionnée au 5° de l’article L. 2111-9 du code des transports et de la société SNCF Voyageurs, et portant diverses dispositions relatives à ces mêmes entités (related to the project of decrees approving the status of the national societies SNCF, SNCF réseau, of the subsidy mentionnes at the 5° of the article L. 2111-9 du code des transports and of SNCF Voyageurs, and carrying some dispositions related to this bodies), 9th of December 2019

Read the opinion (in French)

Read the décret approuvant les status de la société nationale SNCF (in French)

Read the opinion of 9th of May 2019 having preceded the one of 9th of December 2019

Consulter les slides servant de support à la Leçon

Se reporter à la Présentation générale du Cours de Droit de la Compliance.

Consulter le Dictionnaire bilingue du Droit de la Régulation et de la Compliance.

Consulter la Bibliographie générale du Cours de Droit de la Compliance

Consulter la bibliographie ci-dessous, spécifique à cette Leçon relative aux relations entre le Droit de la concurrence et le Droit de la compliance

Résumé de la leçon.

A première vue, le Droit de la concurrence et le Droit de la compliance sont étrangers l'un à l'autre. En effet tandis que, dans son acception classique le premier est Ex Post le second est Ex Ante (se rapprochant ainsi du Droit de la Régulation). Plus encore le Droit de la concurrence est attaché à un organisme spécifique, "l'Autorité de concurrence", ce qui va le rapprocher du Droit de la Régulation, lequel se "repère" par l'institution d'une "Autorité de régulation", alors que le Droit de la compliance est à ce point peu institutionnalisé que l'on continue à douter même de son existence. En troisième lieu, par nature le Droit de la concurrence s'applique à toutes les "entreprises", notion très large en ce qu'elle est directement construite sur la notion d'activité, alors que le Droit de la compliance prend comme sujets de droit les "opérateurs cruciaux". 

Mais l'efficacité des techniques de Compliance a été repérée par les Autorités de concurrence qui, notamment à travers les techniques d'engagement et de "programmes" ont eu à partir des années 1990, sur le modèle du contrôle des concentrations, partie Ex Ante du Droit de la concurrence, développé d'une façno prétorienne des outils de compliance, par du "droit souple", puis les ont sécurisé en les insérant au sein même des procédures juridiquement organisées de sanction, les Autorités pouvant utiliser leur double qualité d'autorité de sanction et d'autorité de poursuite. Sans doute ce cumul d'un fonctionnement contractuel au sein de procédure juridictionnelle, par l'utilisation de programmes qui constituent à la fois des engagements spontanés mais sont aussi des contreparties d'autorisation de concentration, voire de contrepartie de clémence, voire des parties insécables de prononcés de sanction, posent à la fin des difficultés juridiques. 

Il demeure que par l'insertion du Droit de la compliance c'est un mixte de contrat et de contrainte qui est ainsi inséré. 

Par le contrat, qui libère l'Autorité de toute référence à son pouvoir par mécanisme de délégation dans la hiérarchie des normes, l'Autorité peut se transformer en Autorité de Régulation. C'est ce que les Autorités de concurrence sont en train de faire vis-à-vis des opérateurs numériques. 

Mais les Autorités de concurrence sont-elles légitimes à emprunter tout d'abord à une contrainte par le biais procédural neutre de l'accroissement d'efficacité, pour ensuite passer à une véritable contractualisation, ce qui permet de disposer des finalités pour la satisfaction desquelle elles ont été instituées ? N'est-ce pas à l'Etat, à travers un Gouvernement responsable politiquement qui doit fixer des finalités qui cessent d'être économiques? 

En effet les Autorités de concurrence rendent compte de l'exercice de leurs pouvoirs devant les juridictions du recours. Mais s'agit-il d'un contrôle de légalité externe ou d'un contrôle substantiel ? Cette question qui s'est posée à propos du contrôle des concentrations ne pose de nouveau d'une façon plus générale si la finalité du Droit de la concurrence, telle qu'elle est posée à travers ce que la Commission se permet d'appeler la "politique de la concurrence" devient à ce point politique, sans pour autant engager de responsabilité. 

Les Autorités de concurrence qui deviennent ainsi en matière numérique des "superviseurs" alors qu'elles ne sont pas des régulateurs, peuvent prétendre que le Droit de la concurrence serait une des voies pour remettre de l'ordre dans l'espace numérique.

Full reference: Roda, J.-C., La crise du droit antitrust in Mélanges en l'honneur de Jacques Mestre, coll. Mélanges, LGDJ-Lextenso, 2019, p. 839-854

Sciences Po's students can read the article via MAFR Sciences Po's Drive Regulation & Compliance