Obligation

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La volonté, le cœur et le calcul, les trois traits cernant l'Obligation de Compliance" ("Will, Heart and Calculation, the three marks surrounding the Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance" 2025, pp. 49-65. - 📝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 the general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published 📚see the general presentation of the series "Régulations & Compliance" in which this book is published - ► This article is written in French. English summary of this contribution (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance – JoRC): There is often a dispute over the pertinent definition of Compliance Law, but the scale and force of the resulting obligation for the companies subject to it is clear.  It remains difficult to define. First, we must not to be overwhelmed by the many obligations through which the Compliance Obligation takes shape, such as the obligation to map, to investigate, to be vigilant, to sanction, to educate, to collaborate, and so on. Not only this obligations list is very long, it is also open-ended, with companies themselves and judges adding to it as and when companies, sectors and cases require.  Nor should we be led astray by the distance that can be drawn between the contours of this Compliance Obligation, which can be as much a matter of will, a generous feeling for a close or distant other in space or time, or the result of a calculation. This plurality does not pose a problem if we do not concentrate all our efforts on distinguishing these secondary obligations from one another but on measuring what they are the implementation of, this Compliance Obligation which ensures that entities, companies, stakeholders and public authorities, contribute to achieving the Goals targeted by Compliance Law, Monumental Goals which give unity to the Compliance Obligation.  Thus unified by the same spirit, the implementation of all these secondary obligations, which seem at once disparate, innumerable and often mechanical, find unity in their regime and the way in which Regulators and Judges must control, sanction and extend them, since the Compliance Obligation breathes a common spirit into them.  In the same way that the multiplicity of compliance techniques must not mask the uniqueness of the Compliance Obligation, the multiplicity of sources must not produce a similar screen. Indeed, the Legislator has often issued a prescription, an order with which companies must comply, Compliance then often being perceived as required obedience. But the company itself expresses a will that is autonomous from that of the Legislator, the vocabulary of self-regulation and/or ethics being used in this perspective, because it affirms that it devotes forces to taking into consideration the situation of others when it would not be compelled to do so, but that it does so nonetheless because it cares about them. However, the management of reputational risks and the value of bonds of trust, or a suspicious reading of managerial choices, lead us to say that all this is merely a calculation. Thus, the contribution sets out to identify the Compliance Obligation by recognising the role of all these different sources. It emphasises that, in monitoring the proper performance of technical compliance obligations by Managers, Regulators and Judges, insofar as they implement the Compliance Obligation, it is pointless to limit oneself to a single source or to rank them abruptly in order of importance. The Compliance Obligation is part of the very definition of Compliance Law, built on the political ambition to achieve these Monumental Goals of preserving systems – banking, financial, energy, digital, etc. – in the future, so that human beings who cannot but depend on them are not crushed by them, or even benefit from them. This is the teleological yardstick by which the Compliance Obligation is measured, and with it all the secondary obligations that give it concrete form, whatever their source and whatever the reason why the initial standard was adopted. In order to define Compliance's Obligation, the study endeavours to recognise the contribution of all these three sources: Will, Heart and Calculation.

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Obligation sur Obligation vaut" ("Obligation upon obligation work"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2025, pp. 324-354. - 📝read the article - 🚧read the bilingual Working Paper on the basis this article has been written, with more developments, technical references and hyperlinks - 📕read the general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published 📚see the general presentation of the series "Régulations & Compliance" in which this book is published - ► This article is written in French. English summary of this contribution (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance – JoRC): The demonstration of the part played by Will in the Compliance Obligation incumbent on companies is based on the distinction and articulation between the Regulatory Legal Obligation and the spontaneous Obligation of companies, in the use that companies make of their will to implement their Regulatory Legal Obligation and the use that they make of it to produce even new ambitions. This is why the demonstration is carried out in 3 stages. The first part of the demonstration consists in finding the part played by the free will of companies in their Compliance Obligation by putting an end to two confusions: the first, which, within the Contract and Tort Law itself but also within Compliance Law, splits up and confuses "free will" and "consent", which would no longer require freely expressed acceptance; the second, which, specific to Compliance Law, confuses "Compliance" and "conformity", reducing the former to mechanical obedience, which would exclude any free will. Having clarified this, the rest of this study focuses on the 2 ways in which a company subject to a Compliance Obligation by regulations expresses a part of its free will, which the study expresses in this proposed adage: Obligation upon Obligation is valid, since the regulatory legal obligation to which the company responds by the obedience owed by all those subject to the Law may be superimposed by its free will, which will then oblige it. The first case of Obligation upon Obligation, studied in a second part, concerns the means by which the Regulatory Legal Compliance Obligation is implemented, the company subject to the Monumental Goals set by the Law remaining free to choose the means by which it will contribute to achieving them. Its free will will thus be exercised over the choice and implementation of the means. This can take two legal forms: contracts on the one hand and "commitments" on the other. Thirdly, the second case of Obligation upon Obligation, which is more radical, is that in which, in addition to Compliance's regulatory legal Obligation, the company draws on its free will to repeat the terms of its regulatory legal Obligation (because it is prohibited from contradicting it), a repetition which can be far-reaching, because the legal nature (and therefore the legal regime) is changed. The judgment handed down by the The Hague Court of Appeal on 12 November 2024, in the case law Shell, illustrates this. What is more, the free will of the company can play its part in the Compliance Obligation by increasing the Compliance Obligation. This is where the alliance is strongest. The interpretation of the specific obligations that result must remain that of the Monumental Goals in a teleological application that gives coherence to the whole.

► 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.

► Full Reference: J.-Ph. Denis & N. Fabbe-Costes, "Legal Constraints and company Compliance Strategies", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published - 📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published - ► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance – JoRC):  - 🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses -

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Will, Heart and Calculation, the three marks surrounding the Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published - 📝read the article - 🚧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, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published - ► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance – JoRC): There is often a dispute over the pertinent definition of Compliance Law, but the scale and force of the resulting obligation for the companies subject to it is clear.  It remains difficult to define. First, we must not to be overwhelmed by the many obligations through which the Compliance Obligation takes shape, such as the obligation to map, to investigate, to be vigilant, to sanction, to educate, to collaborate, and so on. Not only this obligations list is very long, it is also open-ended, with companies themselves and judges adding to it as and when companies, sectors and cases require.  Nor should we be led astray by the distance that can be drawn between the contours of this Compliance Obligation, which can be as much a matter of will, a generous feeling for a close or distant other in space or time, or the result of a calculation. This plurality does not pose a problem if we do not concentrate all our efforts on distinguishing these secondary obligations from one another but on measuring what they are the implementation of, this Compliance Obligation which ensures that entities, companies, stakeholders and public authorities, contribute to achieving the Goals targeted by Compliance Law, Monumental Goals which give unity to the Compliance Obligation.  Thus unified by the same spirit, the implementation of all these secondary obligations, which seem at once disparate, innumerable and often mechanical, find unity in their regime and the way in which Regulators and Judges must control, sanction and extend them, since the Compliance Obligation breathes a common spirit into them.  In the same way that the multiplicity of compliance techniques must not mask the uniqueness of the Compliance Obligation, the multiplicity of sources must not produce a similar screen. Indeed, the Legislator has often issued a prescription, an order with which companies must comply, Compliance then often being perceived as required obedience. But the company itself expresses a will that is autonomous from that of the Legislator, the vocabulary of self-regulation and/or ethics being used in this perspective, because it affirms that it devotes forces to taking into consideration the situation of others when it would not be compelled to do so, but that it does so nonetheless because it cares about them. However, the management of reputational risks and the value of bonds of trust, or a suspicious reading of managerial choices, lead us to say that all this is merely a calculation. Thus, the first part of the contribution sets out to identify the Compliance Obligation by recognising the role of all these different sources. The second part emphasises that, in monitoring the proper performance of technical compliance obligations by Managers, Regulators and Judges, insofar as they implement the Compliance Obligation, it is pointless to limit oneself to a single source or to rank them abruptly in order of importance. The Compliance Obligation is part of the very definition of Compliance Law, built on the political ambition to achieve these Monumental Goals of preserving systems – banking, financial, energy, digital, etc. – in the future, so that human beings who cannot but depend on them are not crushed by them, or even benefit from them. This is the teleological yardstick by which the Compliance Obligation is measured, and with it all the secondary obligations that give it concrete form, whatever their source and whatever the reason why the initial standard was adopted.

🌐 follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐 subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law  - ► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Face aux clauses de Compliance : le Juge (colloque du 7 avril 2023)" ("Facing Compliance clauses: the Judge (symposium of 7 April 2023)"), Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation, 4 April 2023. - 📧Read by freely subscribing other news of the Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation - Compliance Law is starting to be known; mainly through two blocks: Firstly the spectacular sanctions by which it made as its entry in Europe by the "BNPP sanction" of 2014. 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Le Droit de la Compliance, 2016 Secondly, the accumulation of tools, legal and non-legal, with which companies have equipped themselves: plans to detect and prevent breaches, internal investigations, mapping, ad hoc training, etc. 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir), 📘Compliance Tools, 2021   But what is the "compliance obligation" in the name of which these fearful and heavy sanctions are pronounced and these new and multiple tools are put in place? We do not have a very clear idea. That is why the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its partner universities have chosen to focus on the topic of the Compliance Obligation in a series of symposiums held in 2023. 🔴JoRC, 🏗️L'obligation de compliance, 2023   It could be said that the company is "obliged" by Compliance because it is obliged by the Law, as Compliance would only mean obeying "regulations" (a term used to describe everything that is obligatory, from the Constitution to ethical charters, etc.). The English vocabulary "comply with" suggests this, as does the Chinese practice of Compliance. The difference would then only be the fact that the company shows its "stakeholders" that it does in fact respect all these texts that commit it.   But the practice and the jurist remember that what is sometimes considered as the heart of the Law, since Roman Law, is Obligations Law, having as its object Contract Law and Tort Law.   Yet, in practice, companies have put contracts concerning compliance everywhere, and they are relatively little studied. 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Contrat de compliance, clauses de compliance, 2023 These may be entire contracts whose very purpose is to entrust another with the task of fulfilling all or part of the compliance obligation incumbent on the company, with regard to personal data. These may be clauses inserted in contracts with another purpose, for instance sales contracts in a value chain, where the company stipulates that the other company will also ensure compliance obligations for itself or for the other company, e.g. detect and prevent corruption, be vigilant, etc. Contract Law has already taken on compliance in practice, especially in long-term economic transactions with an international dimension. The judge has always been present in Obligation Law.   How is the triangle articulated: Judge – Compliance – Obligation?   The Judge has been present from the outset in the development of the Compliance Obligation through criminal liability, administrative liability and the obligation for the company to become a judge of itself, particularly through internal investigations. 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), 📘Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, 2023   The Judge is also present through Obligation Law stricto sensu, first of all through liability, which is transformed under the effect of the compliance system, which operates more in the logic of "accountability" and generates legal mechanisms of "ex ante liability". 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝La responsabilité Ex Ante, pilier du Droit de la Compliance, 2022   In contractual matters, the Judge will intervene, in particular with regard to the stipulations which, in the contracts which form the architecture of the value chains, ensure the efficacy (and no longer only the effectiveness) of the duty of vigilance. The Judge will then intervene under the French law of 2017, known as the "Vigilance Law", 🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche, 🚧Vigilance, Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance et "Société vigilante", 2023 but also, because the Judge is the "judge of the contract", he will intervene as such.   To identify the Obligation of Compliance,  🔴M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), 📘Compliance Obligation, 2024 it is therefore necessary to analyse the way in which the Judge apprehends or should in the future apprehend contracts and compliance clauses.   That's why, in the above-mentioned cycle of symposiums, a symposium is being held on 7 April 2023. It is co-organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the Law Faculty of Perpignan, and has been designed under the scientific direction of Walid Chaiehloudj and Marie-Anne Frison-Roche. 🧮Le juge face aux clauses et aux contrats de compliance (The Judge facing clauses and contrats of compliance) -

This working paper has been the basis for the introduction in the presentation made in the conference organized by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) on the topic : Compliance Tools, in collaboration with many Universities partners.  This first conference has been organized with the Sciences po Economic Department on November 28, 2019 on Risks Mapping.    This working paper is articulated with a second working paper, being the basis of the first development of this conference, on the caractère nouveau ou non en Droit de l'obligation de cartographie des risques.   These two working papers are the basis for two articles published in the collective book, Compliance Tools, in the Series Regulations & Compliance.