Duty of vigilance

► Full Reference: A. Danis-Fatôme and G. Viney, « La responsabilité civile dans la loi relative au devoir de vigilance des sociétés mères et des entreprises donneuses d’ordre » (Civil Liability in the Law on the Duty of Vigilance of Parent and Ordering Companies), D. 2017, no. 28, pp. 1610-1618. - 🦉 The article is available in full text for those enrolled in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.

► Full Reference: N. Ida, « Contrat et devoir de vigilance des sociétés » (Contract and the Corporate Duty of Vigilance), JCP E, July 2023, pp. 17-26. - 🦉 The article is available in full text for those enrolled in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.

► Full Reference: L. Tenreira, « La rédaction des clauses d’application du devoir de vigilance par les Global Lawyers : l’exemple des clauses de flow-down » (Drafting Clauses Implementing the Duty of Vigilance by Global Lawyers: the Example of Flow-down Clauses), Revue de droit des affaires internationales, no. 5, 2022, pp. 453-466. - 🦉 The article is available in full text for those enrolled in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.

► Full Reference: Y. Queinnec, « La clause RSE, levier incontournable de vigilance » (The CSR Clause, an Essential Lever of Vigilance), Revue Lamy droit des affaires, no. 139, July 2018.

► Full Reference: M. D’Angelo Petrucci, « Réflexions sur l’essor des clauses de compliance dans les contrats d’affaires » (Reflections on the Rise of Compliance Clauses in Business Contracts), Revue internationale de la compliance et de l’éthique des affaires, no. 1, 10 February 2025, étude 18.

► Full Reference: S. Dupouy, « Le tiers face à la contractualisation de la compliance » (Third Parties and the Contractualisation of Compliance), Droit des sociétés, no. 4, April 2024, étude 5.

► Full reference: L. Knöpfel, « Une perspective anthropologique sur les pratiques de responsabilité des entreprises dans les chaînes de valeur mondiales » (An Anthropological Perspective on Corporate Responsibility Practices in Global Value Chains), Revue internationale de droit économique, 2021/4, vol. XXXV, pp. 45-67. - ► Summary: the author adopts a legal anthropology perspective on the governance of mining companies in global value chains, taking the reader into the relationships between a primary-sector company and local communities at the “resource frontier” in El Cesar, northern Colombia. After a methodological intervention on research into responsibility in value chains, she studies a particular corporate responsibility practice, social programmes, through corporate gifts and the social licence to operate, relations of dependence and detachment between the company and the communities, and the compensatory function of these programmes. She argues that social programmes sustain a cycle of reciprocity through which the company forges close and entangled relationships with the communities and assumes far-reaching responsibilities for their economic and social well-being. This understanding finds a legal counterpart in contractual obligations and third-party beneficiary rights: contract law could and should therefore play a central role in regulating global value chains, in the primary sector and beyond. - 🦉 The article is available in full text to those registered in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.

► Full reference: A. Beckers, « L’image juridique évolutive des chaînes de valeur mondiales. Introduction au numéro spécial » (The Evolving Legal Image of Global Value Chains. Introduction to the Special Issue), Revue internationale de droit économique, 2021/4, vol. XXXV, pp. 5-18. - ► Summary: the author, introducing a special issue she edited with Hans-W. Micklitz, observes that global value chains have become a subject of legal research, driven by the national and European legislation targeting them and by case law increasingly concerned with the allocation of responsibility within global supply chains, yet they remain conceptually obscure. She identifies two causes: the fragmentation of the debate between branches of law – company, contract and tort law on the one hand, trade law and import regulation on the other – and the neglect of the private regulatory structures and power imbalances specific to these chains, which the social sciences have long studied. After reviewing how each of these branches of law approaches value chains, she argues that doctrinal legal analysis should be more closely linked to the study of the private practices and governance mechanisms that constitute them. She then presents the contributions to the issue, which address the question from the perspectives of the company, the contract, tort and trade, together with Kampourakis’s contribution on private regulation within value chains. - 🦉 The article is available in full text to those registered in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.

► Full reference: V. Monteillet, « Le contrat, outil de mise en œuvre des obligations de vigilance entre les partenaires de la chaîne de valeur », in M. Hautereau-Boutonnet, J. Rochfeld and B. Parance (eds.), Engagements et contrats à l’aune des mutations environnementales, Dalloz, “Thèmes & commentaires – Actes” series, 2025, pp. 15-24, in French. - ► Summary: the author starts from the observation that the French Act no. 2017-399 of 27 March 2017 on the duty of vigilance of parent companies and ordering companies sets a goal – establishing a culture of social and environmental risk management throughout the value chain – without predetermining the means. After seven years of application of the Act and the adoption of Directive (EU) 2024/1760 of 13 June 2024, she shows that the contract formalising exchanges between ordering companies, their subcontractors and their suppliers is one of the operational instruments of Vigilance, wanted by public authorities but criticised by non-governmental organisations, since the Rana Plaza building had been audited a few days before its collapse. A first part deals with the drafting of the contractual content, which enables partners in the value chain to anticipate risks. The first requirement is to master contractual technique: the purpose of vigilance clauses and the “cascading contractualisation” of the contractual assurances required by the Directive, and the subject matter of these clauses, which refer to the company’s charters and codes of conduct, to international instruments and, increasingly, to technical standards. The second is to ensure contractual balance: monitoring and auditing of business partners, allocation of the cost of these controls, cooperation with partners and support for SMEs, with a view to the model contractual clauses that the Commission must adopt by 26 January 2027. A second part addresses the modulation of contractual effects and the fair allocation of risks between partners. The contractual relationship is regulated by the ordering company: enhanced prevention action plan, suspension or termination of the business relationship, sanction clauses subject to review for significant imbalance, consultation of stakeholders, which recalls the theory of contractual solidarism. Lastly, the contractual chain is made accountable in light of Article 29 of the Directive: the ordering company’s failure of vigilance may cover the harmful act of the subcontractor, and joint and several liability towards the victim may be shifted, at the stage of contribution to the debt, onto the business partner through the clauses (French Civil Code, Art. 1313 and 1317). - 🦉 The article is available in full text to those registered in Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche’s courses.