Effectiveness

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La définition juridique du Contrat de compliance (The legal definition of the compliance contract)", in Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) published by the Centre for Research on Justice and Conflict Resolution (CRJ) and the Centre for Research in Economics and Law (CRED) at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II), Le "Contrat de compliance" (The "Compliance Contract"),  Paris II Lecture Theatre –  82 Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, 12 June  2026. - 🧮view the full programme for the event - 📶view the slides (in French) - 🌐read the presentation made on LinkedIn - 🚧Read the bilingual working paper on which this conference is based   - 📝This lecture will form the basis of a contribution to the book, 📕Compliance et Contrat (Compliance and Contracts),  To be published in the 📚Regulations & Compliance series, a book co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz. - ► Overview of this lecture : The lecture is divided into three parts. In the first part, the aim is to describe the reality of the “Compliance Contract”, which can be defined as the decision taken by an entity subject to a “Compliance Obligation” (most often a company, but it may also be a administrative organisation) to entrust the fulfilment of that obligation to a third party. This does not diminish the entity’s obligation to be accountable for the compliance structure, nor for its ability to produce the expected outcomes, in particular the behaviours that will contribute to achieving the Monumental Systemic Goals for which the compliance frameworks were adopted. This outsourcing is lawful; its contractual form falls under Contract Law and the principle of contractual freedom. Even if one considers that, since the subject matter of the contract is Compliance itself, it would constitute a ‘Systemic Contract’—just as Compliance Litigation is ‘Systemic Litigation’—its fundamental nature is indeed a bilateral relationship between a client and a professional (who is often subject to professional rules and codes of conduct). Indeed, there are legal consequences to this practice of “Compliance Contracts”, because it is the Compliance System that is thereby served: on the one hand, “regulatory clauses” will be inserted, whilst others will be removed (“deemed unwritten”). Contractual freedom remains the guiding principle, however. In Contract Law, it would be appropriate for the contracting parties to refer to this contribution to the Monumental Goals, which constitute the  fundamental legal norm of the Compliance System, if only to guide the contract Judge who may be called upon in the event of a dispute, as the interpretation of the parties’ intentions must be carried out in a teleological manner. In the second part, the relationship between this "Compliance Contract" and the various "Compliance Clauses" is analysed. The two should certainly not be confused, since, quite apart from these highly specific contracts through which the various compliance techniques are entrusted, in their drafting and management, to third parties, who thus become the experts, there are also clauses inserted into numerous contracts (sales, distribution, manufacturing, service, etc.), clauses which aim, amongst many other clauses serving different purposes, to incorporate compliance considerations into the contract. But first and foremost, the Compliance Contract contains numerous clauses specific to it, which often derive from compliance system, since Compliance concretisation is the very purpose of this specific contract, et nothing else: it is therefore logical that, by way of a ‘transparency effect’, the legal Compliance Systemic requirements should be incorporated into the isolated contract. Secondly, and more significantly, many various contracts contain clauses that provide for the triggering of a “Compliance Ccontract”. For example, when an audit clause is linked to a specific event and the provision stipulates that a contract will then be entered into with a particular expertal body or person, this will generate a Compliance Contract in a second time. The link between the two may give one of the contracting parties control over the other, notably if the expert is close to them. If the links between Compliance Contracts and Compliance Clauses are developping, this could lead to a return to vertical integration. Competition Law may be justified in looking into this.  It appears that, once we have distinguished between Compliance Contracts and Compliance Clauses, and then linked them together, we can arrive at a Contractual Compliance Strategy that is both legitimate and effective, provided that it contributes to the achievement of the Compliance Monumental Goals set by the political and public authorities.  Indeed, as soon as we distinguish between “conformity” – which is intended solely to compel the operator to obey all applicable regulations blindly and mechanically – and “Compliance Law”, which is legally guided by Monumental Systemic Goals, this contractual strategy becomes essential.   Part Three sets out to clarify the scope of this Compliance Contract. The first implication concerns the Compliance System itself, of which it forms a part; the Compliance Contract having the welcome effect of increasing the operator’s contribution to the achievement of the Monumental Systemic Goals (ensuring that systems – banking, financial, transport, energy, climate, digital, etc.—do not collapse and do not crush human beings, but rather benefit the human beings who are involved in them, whether willingly or not). To this end, the contract must enable the operator – where necessary by means of express provisions – to demonstrate its credibility in contributing to the achievement of these Monumental Goals. Reliable pathways and credible structures must be established. In the cas of technical implementation is outsourced by a Compliance Contract, this obligation to provide evidence may be undermined. To compensate for this, the Compliance Contract may itself include provisions relating to portable technical information, support available through the client's accountability mechanism, or even in the event of legal proceedings. The second aspect concerns the contractors themselves, who adapt their intentions and are bound, above all, by this “little law” which is any contract for the parties. This perspective is surprisingly underdeveloped in practice, no doubt because in Law, when considering Compliance, reference is made to unilateral “regulations” and the vertical relationship of obedience that it engenders in the operator.  This changes with the transformation of "conformity" (which is that) in "Compliance Law" (which is based on Monumental Systemic Goals and justifies contracts). The third aspect concerns third parties, namely the stakedholders (and competitors…). These third parties benefit from Compliance Contracts because they are integrated into the Compliance System and because of the transparency between this system and the Compliance Contracts. In fact, and more technically speaking, this specific Cgreement provides them not only with a accountable(the company, the public body, the State), but also with a contractual debtor. Stakeholders may assert rights against the latter. However, because the contracts themselves are also enforceable against third parties, they can anticipate these relationships with third parties – not only the competitors of the entity subject to the Compliance Obligation, but also its own relationship with stakeholders, and even its relationship with public authorities. Indeed, the object (and effect) of the Compliance Contract is to produce and build up Information that is of interest to everyone. The result is a ‘treasure trove of evidence’. A key question is how, and whether, this treasure trove can remain within the circle of the contracting parties or not. Indeed, the fourth area concerns Public Authorities. As the bodies that “uphold” the compliance system, they consider the Compliance Contract to be legitimate and one of the most effective means of ensuring that regulations are effective, efficient and properly enforced; however, they also wish to benefit from the outcome of the contract’s implementation: to access the systemic information it generates. The contracting parties do not always share this view, but the Compliance Contract is not a means of “obeying” regulations. It is the Judge who will certainly address this question of principle, which relates to the very definition of Compliance Law. This brings us to the fifth area of application, which concerns the Courts. Indeed, a number of courts are responsible for hearing such cases: the contract courts, the competition courts, the courts overseeing the various systems whose sustainability is thus safeguarded, and the courts specialising in vigilance legal duty  (which is the cutting edge of Compliance Law).  The issue of the “natural judge” was examined at the symposium held on 29 May 2026 on: Contractual litigation involving compliance: procedural and jurisdictional aspects. The judge hearing the contract case (civil or commercial judge) will tend to refer first and foremost to the contract. This is also why the Compliance Contract conceptor would be well advised to include provisions in its terms regarding its relationship with the Compliance System, so that it is not the authorities of that system who do so in a too much discretionary manner. In understanding the "Compliance Contract", as Iit was emphasised in 2022, in the judge’s interpretation of the contract, the judge is required to reconcile the parties’ intentions with a teleological approach, that is to say, to establish that the parties intended to serve the purpose of the expertise thus requested and developed (for the operator and ultimately for the stakeholders and for the system itself).  By establishing this convergence, the judge gives full effect to the Cmpliance Contract. Rather than framing the issue, as is so often done when reasoning in terms of ‘conformity’, as a conflict between contractual freedom and public policy (conformity serving a public policy that would be contrary to the contract, inferior norm in the vertical normative hiercharchy).  It must be accepted as a fundamental principle that contractual freedom, freedom of contract and a competitive market for compliance expertise are the most effective means of developing a Compliance System that will safeguard interconnected  different systems and protect the people involved in them. - ⛏️Find out more  : 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance contract, compliance clauses, 2022 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, ⚙️Compliance and Contracts, - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐s'abonner à la Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the MaFR Law & Art newsletter

► Full Reference: R. Gauvain & B. Balian, "Opposition et convergence des systèmes juridiques américains et européens dans les règles et cultures de compliance" ("Opposition and Convergence of American and European Legal Systems in Compliance Rules and Cultures"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Editions Lefebvre – Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2025, pp. 401-417. - 📕read the general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published - ► English Summary of this contribution (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance – JoRC) : The authors approach Compliance Law through its tools, mainly compliance programmes through which companies comply with regulations and investigations conducted by companies at the request of public authorities to identify risks and new modes of defence consisting of entering into agreements with prosecuting authorities.  The article highlights the American inspiration behind this movement, whereby the State, primarily for the sake of efficiency, transfers the responsibility for pursuing "Monumental Goals" to businesses. Based on this, the article first shows how American mechanisms have been imported into Europe, particularly France, with the Convention judiciaire d'intérêt public, taking on many of the characteristics of the DPA, even if some specific features remain, for example in the alert mechanisms.   Secondly, the convergence between the two systems is shown, because through the compliance obligations that form the core of these compliance tools, it is always Western values that are expressed, values that are common to American Law and European Law and European countries. It has enabled this importation, and we can now see that these values are more strongly upheld by Europe, particularly through the Vigilance duty and the DSA.  - 🦉This article is available in full text  (in French) to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses -

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Concevoir l'Obligation de Compliance : faire usage de sa position pour participer à la réalisation des Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance" ("Conceiving the Compliance Obligation: Using its Position to take part in achieving the Compliance Monumental Goals"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2025, pp. 3-44. - 📝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: Rather than getting bogged down in definitional disputes, given that Compliance Law is itself a incipient branch of Law, the idea of this contribution is to take as a starting point the different regimes of so many different compliance obligations to which laws and regulations subject large companies: sometimes they must apply them to the letter and sometimes they are only penalised in the event of fault or negligence. This brings us back to the distinction between obligations of result and obligations of means. Although it might be risky to transpose the expression and regime of contractual obligations to legal obligations, starting from this observation in the Compliance Evidentiary System of a plurality of obligations of means and of result, depending on whether we are dealing with this or that technical compliance obligation, we must first classify them. It would appear that this plurality does not constitute a definitive obstacle to the creation of a single definition of the Compliance Obligation. On the contrary, it makes it possible to clarify the situation, to trace the paths through what is so often described as a legal jumble, an unmanageable mass of regulations. Indeed, insofar as the company obliged under Compliance Law participates in the achievement of the Monumental Goals on which this branch of Law is normatively based, a legal obligation which may be relayed by contract or even by ethics, it can only be an obligation of means, by virtue of this very teleological nature and the scale of the goals targeted, for example the happy outcome of the climate crisis which is beginning or the desired effective equality between human beings. This established principle leaves room for the fact that the behaviour required is marked out by processes put in place by structured tools, most often legally described, for example the establishment of a vigilance plan or regularly organised training courses (effectiveness), are obligations of result, while the positive effects produced by this plan or these training courses (efficacy) are obligations of means. This is even more the case when the aim is to transform the system as a whole, i.e. to ensure that the system is solidly based, that there is a culture of equality, and that everyone respects everyone else – all of which come under the heading of efficiency. The Compliance Obligation thus appears unified because, gradually, and whatever the various compliance obligations in question, their intensity or their sector, its structural process prerequisites are first and foremost structures to be established which the Law, through the Judge in particular, will require to be put in place but will not require anything more, whereas striving towards the achievement of the aforementioned Monumental Goals will be an obligation of means, which may seem lighter, but corresponds to an immeasurable ambition, linked with these Goals. Moreover, because these structures (warning platforms, training, audits, contracts and clauses, etc.) only have meaning in order to produce effects and behaviour leading to changes converging towards the Monumental Goals, it is the obligations of means that are most important and not the obligations of result. The judge must also take this into account. Finally, the Compliance Obligation, which therefore consists of this interweaving of multiple compliance obligations of result and means of using the Entreprise's position, ultimately aims at system efficiency, in Europe at system civilisation, for which companies must show not so much that they have followed the processes correctly (result) but that this has produced effects that converge with the Goals sought by the legislator (effects produced according to a credible trajectory). This is how a crucial economic operator, responsible Ex Ante, should organise itself and behave.           - 🌐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, Taking African legal geography into account to achieve an efficient vigilance system, working paper, August 2025/February 2026 - 🎤This working paper follows on from the closing address at the symposium Devoir de vigilance, quelles perspectives africaines ? Regards croisés en droit international, droit comparé et droit OHADA (Vigilance Duty: what are the prospects in Africa? Perspectives from international law, comparative law and OHADA Law, organised by the Faculty of Law of Bordeaux, through its Institut de Recherches en Droit des Affaires et du Patrimoine – IRDAP (Institute for Research in Business and Property Law), held on 15 November 2024.  - 📝This working paper forms the basis of the article "Considérer la géographie juridique africaine pour y réussir l'obligation de vigilance", which concludes the volume edited by Eustache da Allada in 2026 by Éditions Lefebvre-Dalloz, in the “Thèmes & Commentaires” collection,📗Devoir de vigilance, quelles perspectives africaines ? Regards croisés en droit international, droit comparé et droit OHADA (Vigilance Duty: what are the African perspectives? Comparative perspectives in international law, comparative law and OHADA Law). To this end, following an initial draft in August 2025, it was revised a second time to better incorporate the written contributions that make up the book, since the article on which it is based sets out a personal approach drawing on external research whilst also needing to synthesise these contributions. - ► Summary of the working paper :  The French “Vigilance” Act of 2017 incorporated the technical provisions and the spirit of the “Sapin 2” Act of 2016. They share a common goal. They have been and remain a common source of controversy and passion. At their heart lies the establishment of a “compliance obligation”, for which vigilance techniques form the “edge ” in serving a grand ambition: to protect systems from risks, both now and in the future, in order to protect the people involved in them. The passion that continues to surround the Vigilance Act, which gave rise to the European CS3D , is misguided, because the law and passion are never allies. Some would passionately want to see vigilance triumph by condemning companies to perform miracles; others would passionately want to see the destruction of all the texts that established the very concept of this Compliance Law, built upon these Humanist Monumental Goals. But let us acknowledge that in these debates on the Vigilance Obligation, which is being legally implemented across value chains, Africa is often cited as an example in a general discussion. It is not often considered as a distinct case with its own legal landscape. No reliance is placed on its strengths or on its own legal mechanisms, even though value chains – particularly industrial ones – so often lead to it, both now and in the future. Through analyses of the Vigilance Obligation, Africa is perceived as a place of retribution or of a new form of paternalism, and when its future is envisaged, prospects seem to be lacking, even though the very essence of compliance—and therefore of Vigilance—is the future.  If we take a less confrontational view and focus instead on the ‘legal geography’ of African countries and their social and inter-state structures, we see that the concern for others, both present and future – which ultimately constitutes the Monumental Goal of Compliance Law and thus of the Vigilance Obligation – is more prevalent in Africa than it is in Europe, which is now built upon legal individualism. This concern for others is reflected in legal mechanisms akin to mediation and various legal structures that our own institutions would do well to heed: our legislators before adopting bills, and our judges who might listen to them as amici curiae before reaching a decision. If we turn our attention to the African continent, which is exploited by certain segments of value chains, and to labour organisations, it becomes clear that here too, legislation and sanctions are not the whole story. Compliance techniques that make use of soft law and the contractual frameworks underpinning the chains themselves can remove the element of abstraction that is, by nature, inherent in general legislation. Moving forward through contracts under the supervision and with the support of the courts is an approach that could prove more fruitful than well-intentioned legislation, which has served as a catalyst, in line with the privileged position of contract law within OHADA. This serves to enhance the judge’s authority. The Compliance Judicialisation is also linked to the growing connection between Compliance and Contracts. However, it appears that not only can European judges specialising in Compliance Law and Vigilance Obligation thus rule on matters concerning Africa, which they can only know from a distance – though it is the lot of every judge to be an outsider – but African and inter-state Courts, notably through OHADA, can address the Vigilance Obligation because value chains are constituted by contracts. By developing it not as a foreign concept to be assimilated, but as that which expresses the very heart of the Law in Africa: concern for others, solidarity, the search for compromises and solutions so that the social and environmental system – that is to say, the human system – may endure into the Future. - 🔓Read the developments below⤵️ - 🌐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 Surplomb 🌐Subscribe to the newsletter MaFR Law & Art

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Naissance d'une branche du Droit : le Droit de la Compliance" ("Birth of a branch of Law: Compliance Law"), in Mélanges offerts à Louis Vogel. La vie du droit, LexisNexis – Dalloz – LawLex – LGDJ, 2024, pp. 177-188. - 📝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:  The study focuses on the various movements that have given rise to Compliance Law, with particular emphasis on Competition Law. After a preliminary reflection on the construction of the legal system into branches of Law, their classification in relation to each other, the difficulty encountered in this respect by Economic Law, and the various movements that give rise to one of them, the diversity of which the branch subsequently keeps track of, the study is constructed in 4 parts. To find out what gave rise to Compliance Law, the first part invites everyone to reject the narrow perspective of a definition that is content to define it by the fact of "complying" with the applicable regulations in the sens to obey them automatically. This has the effect of increasing the effectiveness of the regulations, but it does not produce a branch of Law, being only an efficiency tool like any other. The second part of the study aims to shed light on what appears to be an "enigma", because it is often claimed that this is the result of a flexible method through the "soft law", or of an American regulation (for instance FCPA), or of as many regulations as there are occasions to make. Instead, it appears that in the United States, in the aftermath of the 1929 crisis, it was a question of establishing an authority and rules to prevent another atrocious collapse of the system, while in Europe, in 1978, in memory of the use of files about Jews, it was a question of establishing an authority and rules to prevent an atrocious attack on human rights. A common element that aims for the future ("never again"), but not the same object of preventive rejection. This difference between the two births explains the uniqueness and diversity of the two Compliance Law, the tensions that can exist between the two, and the impossibility of obtaining a global Compliance Law. The third part analyses the way in which Competition Law has given rise to conformity mechanisms: they had only constituted a secondary branch which is a guarantee of conformity with competition regulations. Developed in particular through the soft law issued by the competition authorities, the result is a kind of "soft obedience", a well-understood collaboration of a procedural type through which the company educates, monitors and even sanctions, without going outside Competition Law, of which compliance  (in the sens of conformity) is the appendix. The distance between a conformity culture and Compliance Law can be measured here. The fourth part aims to show that Competition Law and Compliance Law are two autonomous and articulated branches of Law. Since Compliance Law is a autonomous and strong branch of Law built around Monumental Goals, in particular the sustainability of systems and the preservation of the human beings involved so that they are not crushed by these systems  but benefit from them : the current challenge of European integration is to build the pillar of Compliance Law alongside the competitive pillar. Jurisdictions are in the process of doing this and articulating them. - 🌐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, "Compliance et management : la médiation plutôt que la sanction ?" ("Compliance and management: mediation rather than punishment?"), interview conducted by Jean-Philippe Denis as part of a series of interviews on Compliance Law, in Fenêtres ouvertes sur la gestion (Open windows on management), broadcast by J.-Ph. Denis, Xerfi Canal, recorded December 12, 2023, released on May 22, 2024 - 🌐consult the December 2023 presentation of the interview on LinkedIn - 🌐read the MAFR. Law, Compliance, Regulation of April 2024 based on this interview  - 🧱consult the general presentation of this series of interviews on Compliance Law - 🎥view the full interview on Xerfi Canal - ► Starting point: Since 2016, Marie-Anne Frison-Roche has been building Compliance Law, notably through a collection co-published in French with Editions Dalloz and co-published in English with Editions Bruylant:  🧱lire la présentation de la collection en langue française, Régulations & Compliance ➡️click HERE  🧱read the presentation of the series in English, Compliance & Regulation ➡️click HERE - ► Summary of interview: Jean-Philippe Denis. Question: To put it bluntly, isn't Compliance Law expressed by the BNP Paribas fine? Marie-Anne Frison-Roche.  Answer: It is still through this fine that Compliance is often perceived. How regrettable… - Jean-Philippe Denis. Q.: At least, that's how the Politician realised there was a subject…. Marie-Anne Frison-Roche.  A. : This is true, and not just for politicians and firms since this case has had an impact on European public opinion. This matter has therefore become known for the violence of the sanctions, and the intervention of heads of State to reduce their consequences. But we're talking about sanctions. Meanwhile, others talk about compliance through soft law, soft co-regulation, charters and soft commitments, the contours of which are sometimes uncertain. Today, adjustments are made regarding the Monumental Goals of preserving the systems on which this Compliance Law is based, and tools are used on this basis, tools with which lawyers are very familiar: contracts. Through contracts, enterprises structure their compliance obligations. - Jean-Philippe Denis. Q.: You point out that Compliance Law is becoming more civilised and that more people are resorting to mediation. Marie-Anne Frison-Roche.  A.: Yes, Compliance Law is becoming more civilised, and civil law is becoming increasingly important, particularly through Contract Law, with stipulations being inserted to prevent human rights or environmental infringements. As Compliance Law operates on an ex-ante basis, the enterprise will organise dialogue with stakeholders, in particular when vigilance plans are drawn up, Vigilance mechanism being the spear head of Compliance Law. If the situation becomes litigious and the matter is referred to the courts, the civil courts, whose role is growing, will themselves organise mediation. Mediation, which is now part is an instrument for bringing the parties together and finding solutions. -

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Audition by the French National Assembly's Law Commission on the confidentiality of legal advice  (the "Legal Privilege à la française"), 8 April 2024. - I had expressed my opinion on the need for French legal system to better ensure the confidentiality of legal opinions drawn up by internal lawyers in companies, in an article published in 2023 in the French academic journal Recueil Dalloz: "La compliance, socle de la confidentialité nécessaire des avis juridiques élaborés en entreprise (Compliance Law, the cornerstone of the necessary confidentiality of legal opinions drawn up by companies". Compliance, the cornerstone of the necessary confidentiality of legal opinions drawn up by companies).  Following on from this article, and as a specialist in Regulatory and Compliance Law, I was invited by the French National Assembly's Law Commission to give my opinion on the proposed law n°2022 on the confidentiality of consultations by in-house lawyers ( Proposition de loi n°2022 relative à la confidentialité des consultations des juristes d'entreprises), often named in French Legal privilege à la française. -     ► Summary of this presentation: I have shown that we must start not from the person (external lawyer / in-house lawyer, for instance) and not even centrally from the information in question (branch of Law by branch of Law), but from the Goals pursued, i.e. from Compliance Law. In this respect, we must not be misled. We could do so by confusing mechanical "conformity" with this new branch of Law: Compliance Law. Conformity is merely a tool of Compliance Law. Out of concern for the correct use of the French language, as "Compliance" appears to many to be an American term, the proposed law uses the term "conformité" but refers to Compliance Law. Conformity" is merely the mechanical obligation to obey the applicable rules, which is the fate of any subject of law, subject to the mandatory rules, a passive position common to everyone in a State governed by the Rule of Law. Compliance Law is quite different, with conformity being just one of its tools. On the one hand, Compliance Law imposes an active obligation, and on the other, it targets only certain legal subjects: companies.  For them, it is a matter of ensuring that certain goals set by the legislator are actually achieved, which becomes effectively and efficiently possible thanks to the power of companies (financial power, organizational power, management power, information power, location power, information power). These "Monumental Goals" are either negative (preventing systems from collapsing) or positive (ensuring that systems improve). For companies to play this role – a role that is not required of other "ordinary" people, as they are not "in a position" to take on such a burden, particularly in terms of finance and organization – those in charge of organizing themselves and taking action, i.e. companies, must "detect and prevent" system failures (as required by laws such as US FCPA, French so-called Sapin 2 and Vigilance laws, European CSRD and CS3D, etc.). To "detect and prevent", which is an order from the Legislator, companies need to know the weaknesses of their organization and of the people they answer to, in order to remedy them: "remediation" is a "remedy" to ensure the "sustainability" of "systems". This set of key concepts lies at the heart of Compliance Law, the branch of law That focuses on the future. It is the legal opinions, for example, and in particular the report resulting from internal investigations, that enable those who decide and control this organization (the managers) to fulfill the role entrusted to them by the State. If these opinions are not confidential, the result is not the remediation and preservation of global systems (competitive, climatic, digital, energy, banking, financial systems, etc.): the effective managerial solution in Ex-Ante then consists not in seeking information but, conversely, in not seeking this information, since obtaining it will lead to the weakening of the company through the sanction that the information produces, for lack of confidentiality. The interests of the system, the State and the company are disjointed, because Compliance Law implies their alliance, which is what the confidentiality of legal opinions produces. This is why Compliance Law must, by its very nature, ensure the confidentiality of legal advice. -   When asked about the actual text of the proposal, I felt that the explanatory memorandum was particularly relevant, since the link between Compliance Law (admittedly called "conformité" in the proposed bill by a rather too mechanical respect for the French legal language, from which the French legislator has so far been unable to dispense….) is clear, that this confidentiality is attached to the document, that the company can waive it, and that it is clearly distinct from professional secrecy, all three of which should be approved. For my part, I've suggested a change to the procedure, which must be open to the confidentiality process. Indeed, public authorities, such as Competition and Regulatory Authorities, are rather hostile to this confidentiality. Having contributed a great deal to the development of Regulatory Law, and continuing to do so, I believe that Competition and Regulatory Authorities have a logic that needs to be understood. It is as follows: Regulatory Authorities are Ex-Ante (this was less true for the Competition Authorities, but it too is increasingly so) and are in a situation of information asymmetry. Their first concern is to combat this asymmetry. If we translate this into legal terms, it means that in order to carry out their mission of general interest, they must seek out all available information. However, legal opinions, and in particular the internal investigation report, are what I have described as "evidence treasure". In their logic, the Competition and Regulatory Authorities want to seize it. There is therefore a conflict between two general interest logics: the general interest of the Monumental Goals of Compliance Law actively served by companies, at the behest of the Legislation, which requires the confidentiality of legal opinions, and the general interest of the action of Regulators who fight against information asymmetry and seek to seize the evidential treasures of legal opinions. For the reasons given above, I believe that the Monumental Goals of Compliance must prevail. All the more so as the rights of the defence converge to this end. Ultimately, however, it is up to the Judge, in the event of open conflict, to balance these two claims, which are based on the service of the general interest.  However, reading the proposition, it seems to me that the rather complicated procedure entrusts this to a multiplicity of judges… But since it is indeed Compliance Law which is the best basis for "legal privilege à la française", Compliance Law, which is the extension of Regulatory Law and whose advanced point is the Vigilance duty, it would be more appropriate and logical to entrust this litigation to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Paris Judicial Court. This court has already the exclusive competence for litigation about Vigilance. This would have another fortunate effect: on appeal, the dispute would be brought before the Paris Court of Appeal, which has exclusive jurisdiction (barring exceptions) over disputes concerning decisions on French Competition and Regulatory Authorities. The judges of the "Pôle 5" (12 chambers specializing in economic law) of the very specific court are seasoned and would be well-suited to strike the necessary balance between the two general interests involved. I think a procedural amendment to the proposed text along these lines would be welcome. -   ► See in my work those that may be of interest with regard to this hearing (all with English summary, many with bilingual working paper) ⤵️   🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Le rôle du juge dans le déploiement du Droit de la Régulation par le Droit de la Compliance, in 📗Conseil d'État et Cour de cassation, De la Régulation à la Compliance : quel rôle pour le Juge ?, 2024.   🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance et conformité : les distinguer pour mieux les articuler, 2024. 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.),📕L'obligation de compliance, 2024. 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche et M. Boissavy (dir.), 📕Compliance et droits de la défense, 2024. 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), 📕Compliance et droits de la défense, Les Buts Monumentaux de la compliance,  2022. 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Contrat de compliance, clauses de compliance, 2022. 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Le Droit de la compliance, 2016. - 🌐 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 Surplomb

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Compliance Obligation: build a compliance structure producing credible effects in the perspective of the Monumental Goals targeted by the Legislator, Working Paper, March 2024. - 📝 This Working Paper is the basis of the article "Compliance Obligation: build a compliance structure producing credible effects in the perspective of the Monumental Goals targeted by the Legislator", in📘 Compliance 'Obligation de Compliance,   - ► Summary of this Working Paper: This article explains what companies' Compliance Obligation" is. Delving into the mass of compliance obligations, it uses the method of classification of those that are subject to an obligation of result and those that are subject to an obligation of means. It justifies the choice of this essential criterion, which changes the objects and the burden of proof of companies that are subject to an obligation of result when it comes to setting up "compliance structures" and are subject to an obligation of means when it comes to the effects produced by these compliance structures. Indeed, this article goes on to analyse each body of regulations ("Sapins 2", "Vigilance", CSRD, CS3D, DSA, NIS2, DMA, DORA, AML-FT, ….) and the technical compliance obligations they impose, dividing them into obligations of result or obligations of means, depending on the text. This table of positive law thus drawn up, with reference to all the articles of the texts, shows that in positive law the Compliance Obligation has above all an evidential dimension, which is developed in the third part of the article: the company must show that it has put in place the compliance structures (obligations of result) required by the texts and it is up to third parties who criticise it for the unsatisfactory effects that these structures would have produced, according to them, to show that there is a fault or negligence on the part of the company (obligation of means). Indeed, rather than getting bogged down in definitional disputes, given that Compliance Law is itself a nascent branch of Law, the idea of this contribution is to take as a starting point the different legal regimes of so many different compliance obligations to which laws and regulations subject large companies: sometimes they have to apply them to the letter and sometimes they are only sanctioned in the event of fault or negligence. This brings us back to the distinction between obligations of result and obligations of means. Although it would be risky to transpose the expression and regime of contractual obligations to legal obligations put by legislation, starting from this observation in the evidentiary system of compliance of a plurality of obligations of means and of result, depending on whether it is a question of this or that technical compliance obligation, we must first classify them. It would then appear that this plurality will not constitute a definitive obstacle to the constitution of a single definition of the Compliance Obligation. On the contrary, it makes it possible to clarify the situation, to trace the paths through what is so often described as a legal jumble, an unmanageable "mass of regulations". Indeed, insofar as the company obliged under Compliance Law participates in the achievement of the Monumental Goals on which this is normatively based, a legal obligation which may be relayed by contract or even by ethics, it can only be an obligation of means, by virtue of this very teleological nature and the scale of the goals targeted, for example the happy outcome of the climate crisis which is beginning or the desired effective equality between human beings. This established principle leaves room for the fact that the behaviour required is marked out by processes put in place by structured tools, most often legally described, for example the establishment of a vigilance plan or regularly organised training courses (effectiveness), are obligations of result, while the positive effects produced by this plan or these training courses (effaciety) are obligations of means. This is even more the case when the Goal is to transform the system as a whole, i.e. to ensure that the system is solidly based, that there is a culture of equality, and that everyone respects everyone else, all of which come under the heading of efficiency. The Compliance Obligation thus appears unified because, gradually, and whatever the various compliance obligations in question, their intensity or their sector, its structural process prerequisites are first and foremost structures to be established which the Law, through the Judge in particular, will require to be put in place but will not require anything more, whereas striving towards the achievement of the aforementioned Monumental Goals will be an obligation of means, which may seem lighter, but corresponds to an immeasurable ambition, commensurate with these Goals. In addition, because these structures (alert mechanisms, training, audits, contracts and clauses, etc.)  have real meaning if they are to produce effects and behaviours that lead to changes converging towards the Monumental Goals, it is the obligations of means that are most important and not the obligations of result. The judge must also take this into account. Finally, the Compliance Obligation, which therefore consists of this interweaving of multiple compliance obligations of result and means of using the entreprise's position, ultimately Goals at system efficiency, in Europe at system civilisation, for which companies must show not so much that they have followed the processes correctly (result) but that this has produced effects that converge with the Goals sought by the legislator (effects produced according to a credible trajectory). This is how a crucial company, responsible Ex Ante, should organise itself and behave. - 🔓read the developments below⤵️ - 🌐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 Surplomb

► Full Reference: L. Aynès, M.-A. Frison-Roche, J.-B. Racine and E. Silva-Romero (dir.), L'arbitrage international en renfort de l'obligation de Compliance (International Arbitration in support of the Compliance Obligation), Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Institute of World Business Law of the ICC (Institute), Conseil Économique Social et Environnemental (CESE), Paris, February 9, 2024 - 🌐consult on LinkedIn a general présentation of this event, which links to a presentation and a report of each speech  - 🏗️This symposium takes place in the cycle of symposiums organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its partners Universities, focusing in 2023-2024 on the general theme of the Compliance Obligation - 📚The works will then be inserted in the books:  📕L'obligation de Compliance, to be published in the 📚Régulations & Compliance Serie, co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, published in French. 📘Compliance Obligation, to be published on the 📚Compliance & Regulation Serie, co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, published in English. - ► General presentation of the symposium: "Compliance Obligation" appears to be far from International Arbitration if Compliance Law is only understood in terms of binding regulations or even Criminal Law. Arbitration would only have contact with Compliance Obligation in a repulsive way, when a person claims to have enforced a contract before an arbitration court that disregards a compliance prohibition, e.g. corruption or money laundering. It is therefore from a negative angle that the cross-over has taken place. The fact that Arbitration Law respects the requisite of Criminal Law is nothing new.  Moreover, the power of Compliance in its detection and prevention tools, particularly in terms of evidence, no doubt increases the global efficiency. But Compliance Obligation is based on Monumental Goals, notably linked to global human rights and active ambitions about environment and climate which, particularly in the value chain economy, take the legal form of compliance clauses, or even compliance contracts, or various commitments and plans, which the parties can ask the international arbitrator to enforce. They will do so even more as arbitrators are often the only international, or even global, judges available. The use they will do of Contract Law, Quasi-Contract Law, Enforcement Law, Tort Law, reinforces Compliance Law in a global dimension. - - ► Interviennent :  🎤 Laurent Aynès, emeritus Professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Attorney, Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier (Paris) 🎤 Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, Professor of Regulatory and Compliance Law, Director of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) 🎤 Jean-François Guillemin, former General Secretary of the Bouygues Group 🎤 Christophe Lapp, Attorney, Advant Altana (Paris) 🎤 Jean-Baptiste Racine, Full Professor at Paris Panthéon-Assas University (Paris 2) 🎤 Eduardo Silva-Romero, President of the Institute of World Business Law of the ICC (Institute), Attorney, Wordstone (Paris) - 🧮Read a detailed presentation of the event below⤵️ - 🌐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, Births of a branch of Law: Compliance Law, Working Paper, November 2023. - 📕This Working Paper was drawn up as a basis for a contribution to the collective book given to Professor Louis Vogel, published in 2024 - ► Summary of this Working Paper: The study looks at the various movements that have given birth to Compliance Law, with particular emphasis on Competition Law. After a preliminary reflection on the construction of the legal system into branches of Law, their classification in relation to each other, the difficulty encountered in this respect by Economic Law, and the various movements that give birth to one of them, the diversity of which the branch subsequently keeps track of, the study is constructed in 4 parts. To find out what gave rise to Compliance Law, the first part invites us to reject the narrow perspective of a definition that is content to define it by the fact of "being conform" with all the applicable regulations. This has the effect of increasing the efficacy of the regulations, but it does not produce a branch of Law, being just a set of tools like others. The second part of the study aims to shed some light on what appears to be an "enigma", as it is often claimed that this is the result of a soft method, or of an American political decision, or of as many regulations as there are occasions to make. Instead, it appears that in the United States, in the aftermath of the 1929 crisis, it was a decision of establishing an authority and rules to prevent another atrocious collapse of the system, while in Europe in 1978, in memory of the use of files of personal and racial information, it was a question of establishing an authority and rules to prevent an atrocious attack on human rights. A common element that aims for the future ("never again") but not the same object of preventive rejection. This difference between the two births explains the uniqueness and diversity of the two Compliance Laws, the tensions that can exist between the two, and the impossibility of obtaining a global Law. The third part analyses the way in which Competition Law has given rise to conformity: a secondary branch which is a guarantee of conformity with competition rules. Developed in particular through the soft law issued by the competition authorities, the result is a kind of soft obedience, a well-understood collaboration of the procedural type through which the firm educates, monitors and even sanctions, without leaving  the cercle of Competition Law, of which conformity is an appendix. The distance between a culture of conformity and the substantial Compliance Law can be measured here. The fourth part aims to show that Competition Law and Compliance Law are two autonomous and articulated branches of Law. Since Compliance Law is a branch of Law built on Monumental Goals, in particular the sustainability of systems and the preservation of the human beings involved so that they are not crushed by them but benefit from them, the current challenge of European integration is to build the pillar of Compliance Law alongside the competitive pillar. Jurisdictions are in the process of doing this and of linking the two.   - 🔓read the Working Paper below⤵️ - 🌐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 Surplomb

► Full Reference: S. Lochmann, "ESG Rating Agencies and Compliance as an Effective Way of Increasing International Competitiveness", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Monumental Goals, coll. "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, 2023, pp. 389-400. - 📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Monumental Goals, in which this article is published. - ► Summary of the article:  -

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Le juge, l'obligation de compliance et l'entreprise. Le système probatoire de la Compliance" ("The judge, the compliance obligation, and the company. The Compliance probationary system"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, p 409-442. - 📝read the article (in French) - 🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks  - 📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published - ► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): the article aims to identify the link that must be established between the company in its relationship with the compliance obligations it assumes and the judges to whom it is accountable in this respect: this link is established by evidence. The evidentiary system of proof has yet to be constructed, and it is the purpose of this long study to lay the groundwork.  To this end, the article begins with a description of what is designated here as the "probatory square" in a "probatory system" that is superimposed on the system of rules of substantive legal system. This is all the more important because Compliance seems to be in frontal collision in its very principles with the general principles of the evidentiary system, in particular because it seems that the company would have to prove the existence of the Law or that it would have to bear in a definitive way the burden of proving the absence of violation, which seems to be contrary not only to the presumption of innocence but also to the principle of the freedom of action and of undertaking. In order to re-articulate Compliance Law, the obligations of compliance which legitimately weigh on the company, it is necessary to return to the probatory system specific to Compliance, so that it remains within the Rule of Law. This presupposes the adoption of a substantial definition of Compliance, which is not only compliance with the rules, which is only a minimal dimension, but implies that Compliance Law should be defined by the Monumental Goals on which the public authorities and the companies are in substantial alliance. The evidentiary system of principle makes play between its four summits that are the burden of proof, the objects of proof this evidentiary square of principle, between the burden of proof, the means of proof and their admissibility. Compliance Law does not fall outside this evidential square, thus marking its full membership of the Rule of Law In order to lay the foundations of the evidential system specific to Compliance Law, the first part of the article identifies the objects of proof which are specific to it, by distinguishing between the structural devices, on the one hand, and the expected behaviours, on the other. The first involves proving that the structures required to achieve the Monumental Goals of Compliance have actually been put in place. The object of proof is then the effectiveness of this implementation, which presents the effectiveness of the system. As far as behavioral obligations are concerned, the object of proof is the efforts made by the company to obtain them, the principle of proportionality governing the establishment of this proof, while the systemic efficiency of the whole reinforces the evidential system. However, the wisdom of evidence lies in the fact that, even though the principle remains that of freedom of evidence, the company must establish the effectiveness, efficiency, and effectiveness of the whole, independently of the burden of proof. The second part of the article concerns those who bear the burden of proof in Compliance Law. The latter places the burden of proof on the company in principle, in view of its legal obligations. This burden comes from the legal origin of the obligations, which blocks the "round of the burden of proof". But in the interference of the different vertices of the evidentiary square, the question becomes more delicate when it comes to determining the contours of the compliance obligations that the company must perform. Moreover, the burden of proof may itself be the subject of proof, just as the company's performance of its legal obligations may also be the subject of contracts, which brings us back to the evidentiary system ordinarily applicable to contractual obligations. The situation is different when it comes to a "compliance contract" or when it comes to one or more compliance stipulations, concepts that are still not very well developed in Contract Law.  Furthermore, as all branches of Law belong to a legal system governed by the Rule of Law, other branches of law interfere and modify the methods and solutions of proof. This is the case when the fact, which is the object of proof, can give rise to a sanction, the Law of repression imposing its own solutions in the matter of the burden of proof.  In the third part of the article, the relevant means of proof in Compliance Law are examined, used in that Compliance Law is above all a branch of Law whose object is on the one hand information and on the other hand the Future. Open questions remain, such as whether companies could be forced by the Judge to build technologies to invent new means of proof. To show that they are indeed achieving the Monumental Goals they are charged with.  In the fourth part, the vital character of the pre-constitution of evidence is shown, which is the reflection of the Ex-Ante nature of Compliance Law: evidence must be pre-constituted to avoid the very prospect of having to use it, by finding all the means to establish the effectiveness, efficiency and even the effectiveness of the various Compliance Tools.  If companies do all this methodically, the Compliance evidence system will be established, in harmony with the general evidence system, Compliance Law and the Rule of Law. - 🌐 follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche sur LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 

► Full Reference: S. Lochmann, "Les agences de notation ESG et l'effectivité de la compliance face à la compétitivité internationale" ("ESG Rating Agencies and Compliance as an effective way of increasing international competitiveness"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2022, pp. 401-412. - 📕read a general presentation of the book, Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance, in which this article is published - ► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): The purpose of this article is to show that the markets, those who provide them with financing and those who draw on them, need information on the environmental, social and governance dimensions of the companies involved, ESG rating agencies are companies that contribute to the overall performance of the system and converge on the Monumental Goals that drive Compliance Law. From this perspective, and taking Moody's as a concrete example, the article first explains the role played by an ESG rating agency and its evaluation methodology, in particular the criteria used and the way in which companies inform the markets and stakeholders in this area, particularly with regard to climate change, converging in this respect with the public authorities and with the various international texts, treaties and texts of soft law that follow one another. This convergence between the activity of ESG rating agencies and Compliance Law in that it is organised normatively around Monumental Goals is particularly marked in the organisation of a "just transition", with the agency's activity being inserted into the construction of European texts. It thus appears that the ESG investment ecosystem is in full evolution, implying full collaboration between all participants in the financing industry for sustainable financing and, ultimately, the permanence of democracy. -

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "L'appui du Droit de la Compliance pour la maîtrise quotidienne du Droit de la concurrence" ("The support of Compliance Law for the daily mastery of Competition Law"), in C. Lemaire & F. Martucci (eds.), Liber Amicorum Laurence Idot. Concurrence et Europe, vol. I, pref. C. Lemaire & F. Martucci, foreword B. Lasserre, Concurrences, 2022, pp. 369-374 - ► English Summary of the article: Competition Law has become so huge and has included so many regulations and "regulatory" perspective that we end up giving up trying to grasp it as a whole, preferring to become a specialist in one of its parts.  That would be to lose sight of the simple and strong reason that unites the whole and gives it its breath: Freedom. Freedom experienced by the persons in their daily economic action, Freedom guarded by Competition Law, always returning to its principle: Free Competition. Therefore, the European Union places great emphasis on Competition. To make effective and to keep it in this state, “Competition Policy” is based on Competition Law, but if authorities and judges do not blame companies for their power, they do not rely on it. To do this, Competition Law must be supported by Compliance Law, which strongly encourages companies to act for the effectiveness and the promotion of competitive principles. Competition Law is thus slipping from the Ex-Post towards the Ex-Ante, the commitments of companies leading them to cease being passive, even punished, to become convinced actors and themselves pedagogues. Something to please a great Professor of Competition Law, to whom homage is paid here. - 📗read the Table of Contents of the book in which this article is published (in French) - 🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks - 📝read the article (in French) - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche sur LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

► Full Reference complète : Beaussonie, G., Do Criminal Law and Compliance form a system?, in Frison-Roche, M.-A. (ed.),Compliance Monumental Goals, series "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, to be published. - ► Article Summary:  By nature, Criminal Law is a system that is not intended to develop, principles which limit it being internal to it. Nevertheless if Proportionality is respected, its extension may be legitimate to preserve “fundamental social values” because Criminal Law is the branch of Law concerning what is grave, grave in consequences as in causes. Not always being concerned by Efficiency, the temptation is important to supplement Criminal Law with other repressive mechanisms , not only Administrative Repression but today Compliance which pursues concordant objectives and aims by the "Goals Monumental ”to what would be most important and therefore for which Efficiency would be required, in particular because victory (for example against corruption) should be global. Efficiency is obtained by the internalisation in powerful companies, but this efficiency comes at a price and Criminal Law should not impose too many obligations to do maintaining only a potential link with the commission of a "real offense ”. Its association with Compliance can therefore also only be exceptional and must not lead to forget  that Freedom must always remain the principle. -     📝 Read the  general presentation of the book in which this article is published.   -

►Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., Definition of Principe of Proportionality  and  definition of Compliance Law,  Working Paper, July  2021. -   🎤 this Working Paper is the basis for a conference in the colloquium Compliance and Proportionality. From the control of Proportionality to the proportionality of the control, to be helded in Toulouse, France, on the 14th October 2021.   📝It constitutes the basis for an article:  📕 this article will be published in its French version in the book  Les buts monumentaux de la Compliance, in the Series    Régulations & Compliance  📘  in its English version in the book Compliance Monumental Goals, in the Series    Compliance & Regulation - ► Working Paper Summary: Measuring the relationship between the Principle of Proportionality and Compliance Law depends entirely on the Definition chosen for Compliance Law. Let us first take the definition of Compliance Law as a simple "mode of effectiveness" of the rules to which we hold (I). The more we stick to this procedural definition of Compliance Law as a mode of effectiveness of the rules, the less it is easy to detect specificities in the application of the Principle of proportionality in compliance mechanisms. There are certainly many examples of the application of the principle of proportionality, but the addition and variety of examples are not enough to sculpt an original relationship between Proportionality and Compliance.   However, this exercise is not wasted. In fact, in the confusion which still marks the emergence of Compliance Law, the legal nature of the compliance mechanisms remains contested. However, the imposition of Proportionality, not only as it is an obligation but as a limitation of powers in this first definition focusing on Efficiency, recalls that Compliance, conceived as " process ", would then in any case be admissible at the very least as a" Procedure ", anchored in the Rule of Law Principle, therefore self-limititation expression.   But Proportionality is then like a cold shower in compliance, since it is defined by self-limitation in a Law which would be defined by effectiveness as its only definition…  Ineffectiveness In Efficiency…: it is no longer a relation, it is then an opposition which is established between the two terms … In this definition of Compliance Law, there is no other choice than to put process in this sort of  squaring circle because in this procedural Compliance Definition, as a method of effectiveness, of effectiveness and efficiency of the rules estimated more important more than others, it must however be admitted that Compliance Law, as any branch of the Law, without denying its very legal nature, must be anchored in the Rule of Law Principle. By the principle of proportionality, this new branch of Law is forced to anchor classic solutions from Constitutional, Public or Criminal Law,  the Principle of Proportionality prohibiting the Compliance of be just a process. The Repression  Law  has a large part in this conception and the Proportionality Principle reminds it of the part that Criminal Law still takes (with difficulty and for the moment …) in the admission of ineffectiveness that the Law demands, particularly in the face of Compliance technologies. In this first definition, the Proportionality Principle thus reminds Compliance, entirely held in the idea of ​​Efficiency that it is a "Law" of Compliance" and anchored in the Rule of Law Principle, it must limit its Effectiveness . It is therefore a kind of "price" that these techniques pay, with regret …, to the Rule of Law and in particular to the freedoms of human beings. There is a strong temptation not to want to pay this price. For example by affirming that there is a new technological world, which the new system, entirely in algorithms, will promote in a move away from the Law, rejected towards the Old World. Frequently proposed, or set up for instance in China. Others say that we must "do the balance". But when you balance Efficiency performance and Efficiency self-limitation, you know very well who will win …   But why not look rather on the side of a Definition of Compliance Law where, on the contrary, the two concepts, instead of opposing each other, support each other!   Indeed, Compliance Law is then defined as an extension of Regulatory Law as a set of rules, institutions, principles, methods and decisions taking their meaning and normativity for specific Goals. . In this definition, which is both specific and substantial, these "Monumental Goals" are systemic and require that all means be mobilized for them to be achieved. Future and negative in nature (events that must not happen) but also future and positive in nature (events that must occur), Compliance Law does not apply to all the rules whose  effectiveness required, but this specific type of "Monumental Goals", in an alliance between the political authorities in charge of the future of human groups and the entities in a position to mobilize its means. The method is then different. It is no longer a question of entrenching and the prospect of repression fades into the background. A reversal occurs. Proportionality ceases to be what limits Efficiency to become what increases Efficiency. As soon as Goals have be precised, Proportionality is not the consequence of the limitation (as in the principle of "necessity" of Criminal Law, insofar as the latter is an exception), it is the consequence of the fact that any legal mechanism is a "Compliance Tool", which only has meaning in relation to a "Monumental Goal". It is therefore essential to set the "Goal Monumental Goals". As this is where the legal normativity of Compliance is housed, the control must first and foremost relate to that. Then all the Compliance Tools must adjust in a "proportionate way", that is to say effective to its goals: as much as it is necessary, not more than it is necessary. According to the principle of economy (which is also called the "principle of elegance" in mathematics). In consequence, the rule contrary to the Principle of Proportionality is: the rule useless to achieve the goal. The unnecessary rule is the disproportionate rule: this is how the judicial review of excessive sanctions should be understood, not by the notion of "the limit" but not by the notion of "the unnecessary". Everything then depends on the legal quality of the goal. De jure – and this would deserve to be a requirement at constitutional level, the goal must always be clear, understandable, non-contradictory, attainable. This increases the office of the Judge. This renews the power of the Legislator in a conception which ceases to be discretionary. But the Legislator retains the prerogative of determining the Monumental Goals, while the Judge controls the quality of the formulation that he makes of them, in order to be able to measure the proportionality of the means which are put in front by the State and the Companies, while Companies can rally to the Monumental Goals of the Politics by making an alliance with them, but certainly not instituting others in an autonomous way because they are not normative political entities, whereas they are free to determine the means necessary to achieve these goals, the Judge controlling the proportionality mechanism that makes this new system work. The case law of the German Constitutional Court expresses this conception. It is fully consistent with what Compliance Law is in what is the one Monumental Goal containing all the systemic Monumental Goals: the protection of the human being. -  

► 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? -

► Do Compliance and Democracy have a relationship? China replies: no. Europe responds and must respond: they are intimate. The definition of Compliance Law is therefore essential. In an interview of great clarity  given in French to the Newspaper Les Echos on June 2, 2021, about Brexit, China and Russia (➡️📝 "Brexit, Chine, Russie : les confidences de la diplomate Sylvie Bermann"), Sylvie Bermann reminds the evolution of China. She sums up the situation as follows: « La Chine ne veut pas dominer le monde, elle veut être la première et surtout qu'on ne puisse pas lui imposer un système, la démocratie » ("China does not want to dominate the world, it wants to be the first and above all that no one can impose on it a system, Democracy,"). This is reflected in China's conception of Compliance Law. If one defines Compliance Law only as a "method" for the effectiveness of rules, consisting of a kind of "Ex Ante enforcement process" leading to 100% effectiveness of regulations by subjects who must show to everyone the respect they have for these regulations and who are rewarded by this proof thus given, then China, in its current use of Law, illustrates exactly this definition: subjects, individuals and companies, prove their "obedience" to rules – whatever the rules" substantial content -, which is evaluated ("rating") and rewarded, in a mechanical reign of the Ex Ante, served by technologies. Democratic mechanisms are not required; they are even disturbed, because they interfere with the efficiency of the system. The technological and purely technocratic conception of Compliance ("Regulation by data", for example) uses the same definition of Compliance Law, which leads to choose algorithms’ efficiency. Europe must keep going to make another choice: European Compliance was born out of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s case law, in the 2014 judgment, Google Spain (➡️📝CJEU, Google Spain, May 13, 2021), to protect the person by inventing a subjective right: the right to be forgotten, in a digital space with infinite memory. Based on the Rule of Law, Compliance Law is then defined by its Monumental Goals, which are the protection of people and puts the judge at the center. It is the reverse of Chinese mechanics. Therefore, they are definitions that lead the world: about the definition of Compliance Law by "Monumental Goals", see ➡️📅 the 2021 cycle of colloquia co-organized by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its university partners on Monumental Goals; on the technical influence of this definition on "Compliance tools" ➡️📕see Frison-Roche, M.-A., Legal Approach to Compliance Tools: Building by Law the unity of Compliance Tools from the definition of Compliance Law by its "Monumental Goals", 2021.   ►subscribe to the MaFR ComplianceTech® Newsletter