General contract law

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, “Synthèse” (Synthesis), in Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut de recherche juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS), Compliance et Droit commun des contrats (Compliance and General Contract Law), Paris, 7 October 2026. see on Instagram the carousel devoted to the conference (in French) - 🧮read the full programme of the event 🏗️This colloquium is part of the 2026 cycle of colloquia Compliance and Contract. - 🎤See the presentation of the other intervention made in this colloquium: Autonomie de la volonté, engagements et Compliance (Autonomy of will, commitments and Compliance). - 📝See also the newsletter devoted to this colloquium: Compliance et Droit commun des Contrats : mariage difficile, mariage prometteur (Compliance and General Contract Law: a difficult marriage, a promising marriage, in French). - ► Presentation of this conference: The synthesis closes the colloquium Compliance et Droit commun des contrats (Compliance and General Contract Law), organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the Institut de recherche juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS) of Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, under the scientific responsibility of Julia Heinich, Nicolas Bargue and Marie-Anne Frison-Roche. It draws together the contributions of the morning: the autonomy of will as the source of the contractual Compliance Obligation, the regulatory contracts generated by compliance (Jean-Baptiste Barbieri), the position of third parties to contracts with a compliance dimension (Philippe Stoffel-Munck) and the scope of contracts expressing the compliance imperative (Laurent Aynès), in order to bring out what general contract law brings to Compliance Law and what the latter asks of it in return. - 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 Droit & Art

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, “Autonomie de la volonté, engagements et Compliance” (Autonomy of will, commitments and Compliance), in Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut de recherche juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS), Compliance et Droit commun des contrats (Compliance and General Contract Law), Paris, 7 October 2026. see on Instagram the carousel devoted to the conference (in French) see on Instagram the image announcing this lecture (in French) - 🧮read the full programme of the event 🏗️This colloquium is part of the 2026 cycle of colloquia Compliance and Contract. - 🖥️read the slides supporting this conference (in French) - 🎤See the presentation of the other intervention made in this colloquium: Synthèse (Synthesis). - 📝This conference will give rise to an article, “Autonomie de la volonté, engagements et Compliance”, to be published in the book 📕Compliance et Contrat (Compliance and Contract), in the series 📚Régulations & Compliance, co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz. - ► Presentation of this conference: Contract law, in its common rules expressed by the “general theory of contracts”, seems at first sight to be given little consideration when it comes to Compliance. Yet the “commitments” that punctuate the techniques and behaviours making up the “compliance culture” hold a central place in Compliance Law, without their place, let alone their equivalence with Contract, being settled. If one stops perceiving Compliance Law only through the prism of repression, the compliance obligation can be thought of as also having contract as a legitimate source, a contract whose source, in general law, is the autonomy of will and all its consequences. It is on the basis of this founding principle that this conference opens the colloquium. At the heart of Contract Law as of Compliance Law lies the will. But whose will? If the will of the Legislator shapes the obligation that companies implement, and if the Monumental Goals stem from the will of the Political power, companies would enter into them only as executors, and the contract would merely be a path taken by the law to apply more effectively: an arranged marriage. The conference proposes to link the compliance contract, or the compliance clause, not to the external will of a Legislator, but to the primary source of the contract: the autonomous wills of the contracting parties who exchange their consents, thus restoring to the autonomy of will its place as the source of the contractual Compliance Obligation. It first measures the concrete stake of designating this source, distinguishing three conceptions: the contract as the mouthpiece of the regulator, the contracting parties as the regulator’s “good soldiers”, and autonomous and convergent wills, which choose the ways and means of taking their part in the legal ambitions — Compliance chosen rather than Compliance endured. It then proposes to put an end to the current confusion between the force of regulation, the binding force of wills and the impetus of commitments, and finally to occupy the contractual sphere freely in order to develop a contractual Compliance system specific to each company. - 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 Droit & Art