Food for thoughts

Thesaurus : Soft Law

► Référence complète : Agence française anticorruption (AFA), Guide du contrôle comptable anticorruption, 2022. 

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► Lire le guide

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📧 Lire le commentaire fait par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche de ce guide. 

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : Branellec, G. et Cadet, I., "Le devoir de vigilance des entreprises françaises : la création d’un système juridique en boucle qui dépasse l’opposition hard law et soft law", Open Edition, 2017.

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Galli, M., Une justice pénale propre aux personnes morales : Réflexions sur la convention judiciaire d'intérêt public , Revue de Sciences Criminelle, 2018, pp. 359-385.

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Editorial responsibilities : Direction of the collection Compliance & Regulation, JoRC and Bruylant

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 Full ReferenceM.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance and ContractJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘In parallel, the French version of this book, Compliance et contrat, is published in the Serie co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz 

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🧮This book comes after a cycle of symposiums organised in 2023-2024 by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its Academic Partners

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 General presentation of the book

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📚This volume is one of a series of books devoted to Compliance in this Serie.

 read presentations of the other books of this Serie dealing with Compliance :

  • further books:

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Evidence System, 2025

  • previous books:

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Obligation2024

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Jurisdictionalisation2024

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Monumental Goals2023

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Tools, 2021

 

📚see the global presentation of all the books of the Serie.

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🏗️General construction of the book:

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Lalande, P.-A., Le pouvoir d’injonction au service de la réparation du préjudice écologique : une mise en œuvre de l’office du juge administratif en matière climatique, Actu-Juridique, 9 décembre 2021.

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Teachings : Droit de la régulation bancaire et financière - semestre 2022

En principe, l'exercice constituant le contrôle final de connaissance à la fin du semestre est, au choix de l'étudiant, soit une dissertation, soit une note de synthèse. L'étudiant dispose de trois heures pour faire l'exercice dans une copie, dont le volume ne doit pas dépasser 6 pages. 

Jusqu'en 2017 un exercice de mi- semestre se déroulait, de structure identique à celui de fin de semestre, permettant aux étudiants de se préparer à celui-ci. Depuis 2017 la direction de l'Ecole a désiré qu'il n'y ait plus un tel galop d'essai organisé. Dans un même souci de simplification, l'exercice de commentaire de texte en a été éliminé. La possibilité de proposer un choix entre deux dissertations a été exclue. 

Les copies sont corrigées par l'ensemble de l'équipe pédagogique, professeur d'amphi et maîtres de conférences. Un contrôle supplémentaire est assuré selon les modalités générales de l'Ecole. 

La situation sanitaire qui marqua l'année 2021 avait justifié qu'un autre système de contrôle de connaissance soit adopté. C'est pourquoi l'examen final avait été pour cette année supprimé, remplacé par une dissertation à faire en parallèle du cours et des conférences. L'étudiant avait à choisir entre deux sujets, élaborés en équipe par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, pour faire une dissertation. Les sujets avaient été proposés à la m-semestre et les copies devaient être restituées à l'administration à la fin du semestre pour être corrigées par l'ensemble de l'équipe pédagogique. Parce qu'il ne s'agit donc pas d'une épreuve de vitesse, il n'avait pas été proposé d'exercice pratique. 

L'année 2022 permettant un retour à davantage de normalité, un retour a été possible vers un examen final en présentiel se déroule à la fin du semestre. Les principes n'en sont pas modifiés : il consiste , au choix de l'étudiant, dans soit une dissertation, soit une note de synthèse. L'étudiant dispose de trois heures pour faire l'exercice dans une copie, dont le volume ne doit pas dépasser 6 pages. 

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

A Central Bank is for the Law a rather mysterious object.

Despite what some competition authorities have said, it is not an ordinary bank. It is at the root of monetary creation and its primary mission is to fight against inflation, contributing more or less directly and in a more or less independent way according to political and legal systems to the economic policy pursued by governments.

Thus, while central banks all have constitutional status which guarantees autonomy, they have a more limited mission in Europe than in the United States. This is even more evident since monetary cre - ation has been transferred to the European Central Bank (ECB), which makes it even more necessary to interpret what the Central Bank can do, Reminded the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in 2015 of the ECB's non-conventional monetary policy programs.

The central bankers either directly by a department or indirectly by an independent administrative authority (IAA) backed by them and who, although independent, have no legal personality with regard to them ( for example in the French system concerning the " Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de resolution - ACPR) exercises regulatory and supervisory powers over the banking and insurance sectors.

As such, they are regulators. When en Europe the power to create money has been taken away from them, passing from the Member States to the European Central Bank (ECB)  through the Euro Zone, it is this regulatory and supervisory power which remains their own, their mission being only to participate in the European collective mechanism.


But for exercising its regulatory and supervisory role, the central bankers have considerable powers, including approval, sanction and, since 2013 and 2014, resolution. But in this respect it must be considered that, in particular with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights, central bankers are like courts and in the exercise of numerous powers, procedural guarantees must be conferred on operators who are the object of those powers.

Thesaurus : Doctrine

 Référence complète : L. Grosclaude, "Financiarisation des professions libérales réglementées : vers un changement du paradigme",  JCP Entreprise, n°49, déc. 2023, étude 1355.

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🦉cet article est accessible aux personnes qui suivent les enseignements du professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

The term "breach" is new in Law. In the legal order, the term "fault" is that which is retained to designate the behavior of a person who deviates from a rule and must be sanctioned, because by this act he has manifested a fraudulent intention which may is reproached to him. But the legal notion of fault, which was central in the classic Law of civil liability and was essential in criminal liability Law has the major drawback of calling for proof: that of the intention to "do wrong". This seems all the less adequate when it comes to assessing the behavior of organizations, such as companies, whose behavior and power must be controlled more than the faulty behavior of their leaders sanctioned.

This is why both to lighten the burden of proof concerning natural persons, in particular those with the power and the function of deciding for others (managers, "senior executives") and to better correspond to the distribution of the power of The action, which is now held by organizations, in particular companies, are "failures" and no longer faults or negligence which constitute the triggering events triggering their liability or justifying repression.

It is more particularly an administrative repression, the end of which is not to sanction misconduct but to effectively protect the regulated sectors. The sanction for breaches is therefore both easier, because it is always necessary to prove the intention, and more violent, because the sanctions attached can relate to a share of the profits withdrawn, to a share of the turnover. business of the operator or can take the form of commitments by the operator for the future, a very restrictive and new form of sanction that the compliance technique has inserted into the law.

Thus the breach can be defined as a behavior, even an organization which is away from the behavior or the situation that the author of a text has posed as being that which he posits as adequate. This definition, which is at the same time broad, abstract, teleological and prescription, which makes it possible to apprehend not only behaviors but also structures, makes the sanction of breaches a daily tool of Regulatory Law.

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : M. Caffin-Moi, "L’imprégnation des branches du droit par les mécanismes de compliance : le contrat", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), Compliance et contrat, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", à paraître

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📕lire une présentation de l'ouvrage, Compliance et contrat, dans lequel cet article est publié

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► Résumé de l'article (fair par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : L'auteure commence par montrer que les contrats sont de plus en plus présents dans le Droit de la Compliance, celui-ci n'étant plus ce qui est seulement exprimé par des lois d'ordre public, tandis que le contrat ne porterait que les intérêts privés de deux parties particulières. Elle expose comment concrètement aujourd'hui, et chaque jour davantage, les contrats sont utilisés comme un instrument de diffusion de la Compliance, la Vigilance étant exemplaire de cela, les textes incitant les entreprises à le faire, la CS3D mettant "le contrat à l'honneur" par la mise en place de "cascades contractuelles", le contrat agissant à la fois en surface et en profondeur.

Mais il ne faut pas que le contrat soit un moyen de restreindre la responsabilité, et l'on trouve des points de "friction" entre Contrat et Compliance.

Tout d'abord, parce que les réglementations, voire la jurisprudence, obligent les entreprises à contracter, par exemple avec des fournisseurs de rang 2, ce qui est une atteinte à la liberté de ne pas contracter.

En outre, les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance institutionnalisent une relation contractuelle qui peut être déséquilibrée, voire engendrer une concurrence déloyale si une entreprise s'y plie et l'autre pas, la Compliance conférant de plus des prérogatives exorbitantes à l'entreprise.

Pour ne pas provoquer trop de conflits, et l'auteure souligne que le premier est certainement celui sur la compétence juridictionnelle entre le tribunal de commerce et le Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, il faut impérativement un dialogue des juges.

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Thesaurus : Soft Law

Référence complète : Gauvain, R. et Marleix, O., Rapport d'information sur l'évaluation de l'impact de la loi n° 2016-1691 du 9 décembre 2016 relative à la transparence, à la lutte contre la corruption et à la modernisation de la vie économique, 2021.

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Lire le rapport. 

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: M. Séjean, "The Compliance Obligation in the Cybersecurity Field: a web of behavioural requirements to protect the System", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance ObligationJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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 Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): 

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: D. Gutmann, "Tax Law and Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance ObligationJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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 Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): The author takes up the hypothesis of a Compliance Law defined by its Monumental Goals, the realisation of which is entrusted to "crucial operators" and confronts it with Tax Law. The link is particularly effective since these operators possess what governments need in this area: relevant Information.

Going further, Compliance Law can give rise to two types of obligations on the part of these operators, either towards others operators who need to be monitored, corrected or denounced, or towards themselves, when they need to make amends.

In the first part of this contribution, the author shows that Compliance Obligation reproduces the mechanism of a Tax Law which, for large companies, is embroiled in a process of increasing Globalisation. It enables Governments to aspire to the "Monumental Goals" of combating tax optimisation and impoverishing governments, victims of the erosion of the tax base, in the face of the strategies of companies that are more powerful than they are themselves, by using this very power of firms to turn it against them. Companies become the willing or de facto allies of governments, particularly when it comes to recovering tax debts, or assist them in their stated ambition to achieve social justice.  In this way, the State "manages" Tax Law by cooperating with companies.

In the second part, the author outlines the contours of this business Compliance Obligation, which is no longer simply a matter of paying tax. Beyond this financial obligation, it is more a question of mastering Information, particularly when multinational companies are subject to specific tax reporting obligations and are required to reveal their tax strategy, presumed to be transparent and coherent within the group : this legal presumption gives rise to obligations to seek information and ensure coherence, since a single tax strategy is not self-evident in a group.

The author emphasises that companies have accepted the principles governing these new compliance obligations and are tending to transform these obligations, particularly Transparency, into a communication strategy, in line with the ESG criteria that have been developed and a desire for fruitful relations with stakeholders. Therefore the tax relations developed by major companies are being extended not only to the tax authorities, but also to NGOs, by incorporating a strong ethical dimension. This is leading to new strategies, particularly in the area of Vigilance.

The author concludes: "A n’en pas douter, l’obligation de compliance existe bel et bien en matière fiscale." ("There is no doubt that the Compliance Obligation does exist in tax matters").

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Teachings : Generall Regulatory law

Retourner à la présentation générale du Cours.

Cette bibliographie générale rassemble quelques références générales, qui se superposent ou croisent les bibliographies plus spécifiques sur :

 

  • Doctrine (par ordre alphabétique), la présentation distinguant quelques ouvrages généraux avant de répertorie des études pertinentes pour comprendre le "Droit commun de la Régulation"

 

  • Textes de droit international, textes de systèmes juridiques étrangers,textes de l'Union européennes, textes de droit français

 

  • Littérature grise

 

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

In principle, the very mechanism of the market is governed by freedom, the freedoms of the agents themselves - the freedom to undertake and contract - and the competitive freedom that marks the market itself, the convergence of these freedoms allowing the self-regulated functioning of The "market law", namely the massive encounter of offers and demands that generates the right price ("fair price").

For this to work, it is necessary but it is enough that there is no barrier to entry the market and there is no behavior by which operators can hinder this competitive market law, by abuse of dominant position and cartel.
 

But in the case of financial markets, which are regulated markets, "market abuses" are sanctioned at the very heart of regulation. Indeed, the regulation of the financial markets presupposes that the information is distributed there for the benefit of investors, or even other stakeholders, possibly information not exclusively financial. This integrity of the financial markets which, beyond the integrity of information, must achieve transparency, justifies that information is fully and equally shared. That is why those who hold or must hold information that is not shared by others (privileged information) must not use it in the market until they have made it public. Similarly, they should not send bad information to the market. Neither should they manipulate stock market prices.

These sanctions were essentially conceived by the American financial theory, concretized by the American courts, then taken back in Europe. To the extent that they sanction both reproachable behavior and constitute a public policy instrument of direction and protection of markets, the question of cumulation of criminal law and administrative repressive law can only be posed with difficulty in Europe.

 

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: L. Rapp, "Compliance, Value Chains and Service Economy", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance ObligationJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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 Summary of the article (done by the author, translated by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): Based on an analysis of the value chains of companies in the space sector and their recent evolution, this contribution examine the role, place and current transformations of compliance policies and strategies in the context of an industrial transformation that has become essential: the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy.

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Teachings : Compliance Law

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This general bibliography brings together some general references, which overlap or cross over the more specific bibliographies on Compliance, through different subjects or branches of Law, in French Law or in foreign and supra-national Law having a direct influence, so that one can understand what results in nation law.

It is composed of doctrinal documents (books and articles), legislative or regulatory texts applicable in France and other countries (and, where applicable, draft laws or regulations), as well as documents of gray literature .

It may be relevant to cross this bibliography with the broader Bibliography on the General Regulation Law, or with the more focused Bibliography on the Law of Banking and Financial Regulation.

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Terré, F., Concurrence et proportionnalité, in Parléani, G. (coord.), Mélanges en l'honneur du Professeur Claude Lucas de Leyssac, LexisNexis, novembre 2018, pp.467-471. 

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Lire une présentation générale des Mélanges dans lesquels l'article a été publié.

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: L. d'Avout, "Compliance and conflict of laws. International Law of Vigilance-Conformity, based on recent applications in Europe", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance ObligationJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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 Summary of the article (done by the Author, translated by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): In the absence of constraints derived from the real international law, vigilance-compliance laws themselves determine their scope of application in space. They do so generously, to the extent that they often converge on the same operators and 'overlap' on the world stage. The result is a hybridation of the law applicable to the definition of Compliance Obligations; a law possibly written "with four hands" or more, which is not always harmonious and which exposes unilateral legislators to occasional retouching their work and their applied regulations.

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: L. Aynès, "How International Arbitration can reinforce the Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance ObligationJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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 Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): The author takes as his starting point the observation that International Arbitration and Compliance are a natural fit, since they are both a manifestation of globalisation, expressing an overcoming of borders, with arbitration being able to take on the Compliance Monumental Goals, since it has engendered a substantially global arbitral order.

But the obstacle lies in the fact that the source of arbitration remains the contract, with the arbitrator exercising only a temporary jurisdiction whose mission is given by the contract. Yet the advent of the global arbitral order makes this possible, with the arbitrator drawing on norms that may include the Compliance monumental goals and corporate commitments. In so doing, the arbitrator becomes an indirect organ of this emerging compliance law.

The contribution then suggests a second development, which could make the arbitrator a direct organ of compliance. For this to happen, the arbitrator must not only compel the fulfillment of an obligation to act, as is already the case with provisional measures, but also have a broader conception of the conflict for which a solution is required, or even free himself somewhat from the contractual source that surrounds it. This may well be taking shape, mirroring the profound transformation of the judge's office.

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : Association des professionnels du contentieux économique et financier (APCEF), La réparation du préjudice économique et financier par les juridictions pénales, 2019.

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Lire le rapport

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Boy, , "Réflexion sur le "droit de la régulation". A propos du texte de Marie-Anne Frison-Roche",  D., chron., 2001, p.3031 et s.

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

 Full Reference: Deffains, B., Compliance and International Competitiveness, in Frison-Roche, M.-A. (ed.), Compliance Monumental Goals, series "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, to be published.

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► Article Summary: Compliance, which can be defined first and foremost as obedience to the law, is an issue for the company in that it can choose as a strategy to do or not to do it, depending on what such a choice costs or brings in. This same choice of understanding is offered to the author of the norm, the legislator or the judge, or even the entire legal system, in that it makes regulation more or less costly, and compliance with it, for companies. Thus, when the so-called “Vigilance” law was adopted in 2017, the French Parliament was criticized for dealing a blow to the “international competitiveness” of French companies. Today, it is on its model that the European Parliament is asking the European Commission to design what could be a European Directive. The extraterritoriality attached to the Compliance Law, often presented as an economic aggression, is however a consubstantial effect, to its will to claim to protect beyond the borders. This brings us back to a classic question in Economics: what is the price of virtue?

In order to fuel a debate that began several centuries ago, it is first of all on the side of the stakes that the analysis must be carried out. Indeed, the Law of Compliance, which is not only situated in Ex Ante, to prevent, detect, remedy, reorganize the future, but also claims to face more “monumental” difficulties than the classical Law. And it is specifically by examining the new instruments that the Law has put in place and offered or imposed on companies that the question of international competitiveness must be examined. The mechanisms of information, secrecy, accountability or responsibility, which have a great effect on the international competitiveness of companies and systems, are being changed and the measure of this is not yet taken.

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📘  lire la présentation générale du livre, Compliance Monumental Goals, dans  lequel cet article est publié

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

The Independent Administrative Authority (IAA) is the legal form that the legislator has most often chosen to build regulatory authorities. The IAA is only its legal form, but French law has attached great importance to it, following the often formalistic tradition of public law. They are thus independent administrative authorities, especially in the legal systems of continental law like France, Germany or Italy.

The essential element is in the last adjective: the "independent" character of the organism. This means that this organ, which is only administrative so has a vocation to be placed in the executive hierarchy, does not obey the Government. In this, regulators have often been presented as free electrons, which posed the problem of their legitimacy, since they could no longer draw upstream in the legitimacy of the Government. This independence also poses the difficulty of their responsibility, the responsibility of the State for their actions, and the accountability of their use of their powers. Moreover, the independence of regulators is sometimes questioned if it is the government that retains the power to appoint the leaders of the regulatory authority. Finally, the budgetary autonomy of the regulator is crucial to ensure its independence, although the authorities having the privilege of benefiting from a budget - which is not included in the LOLF - are very few in number. They are no longer referred to as "independent administrative authorities" but as "Independent Public Authorities", the legislator making a distinction between the two (French Law of 20 January 2017).

The second point concerns the second adjective: that it is an "administrative" body. This corresponds to the traditional idea that regulation is the mechanism by which the State intervenes in the economy, in the image of a kind of deconcentration of ministries, in the Scandinavian model of the agency. If we allow ourselves to be enclosed in this vocabulary, we conclude that this administrative body makes an administrative decision which is the subject of an appeal before a judge. Thus, in the first place, this would be a first instance appeal and not a judgment since the administrative authority is not a court. Secondly, the natural judge of the appeal should be the administrative judge since it is an administrative decision issued by an administrative authority. But in France the Ordinance of 1 December 1986 sur la concurrence et la libéralisation des prix (on competition and price liberalization), because it intended precisely to break the idea of ​​an administered economy in order to impose price freedom on the idea of ​​economic liberalism, required that attacks against the decisions of economic regulators taking the form of IAA are brought before the Court of Appeal of Paris, judicial jurisdiction. Some great authors were even able to conclude that the Paris Court of Appeal had become an administrative court. But today the procedural system has become extremely complex, because according to the IAA and according to the different kinds of decisions adopted, they are subject to an appeal either to the Court of Appeal of Paris or to the Conseil d'État (Council of State) . If one observes the successive laws that modify the system, one finds that after this great position of principle of 1986, the administrative judge gradually takes again its place in the system, in particular in the financial regulation. Is it logical to conclude that we are returning to a spirit of regulation defined as an administrative police and an economy administered by the State?

Finally, the third term is the name itself: "authority". It means in the first place an entity whose power holds before in its "authority". But it marks that it is not a jurisdiction, that it takes unilateral decisions. It was without counting the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the judicial judge! Indeed, Article 6§1 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that everyone has the right to an impartial tribunal in civil and criminal matters. The notion of "criminal matter" does not coincide with the formal traditional concept of criminal law but refers to the broad and concrete factual concept of repression. Thus, by a reasoning which goes backwards, an organization, whatever the qualification that a State has formally conferred on it, which has an activity of repression, acts "in criminal matters". From this alone, in the European sense, it is a "tribunal". This automatically triggers a series of fundamental procedural guarantees for the benefit of the person who is likely to be the subject of a decision on his part. In France, a series of jurisprudence, both of the Cour de cassation (Court of Cassation), the Conseil d'État (Council of State) or the Conseil constitutionnel (Constitutional Council) has confirmed this juridictionnalization of the AAI.

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Paradoxically, the notion of conflict of interest seems to be at the center of Economic Law only recently in Economic Law, in both Corporate and Public Law. This is due to the philosophy which animates these two branches of Law, very different for each, and which has changed in each.

In fact, and in the first place in Public Law, in the Continental legal systems and especially in French legal tradition, on the side of the State, the one who serves it, by a sort of natural effect,, makes the general interest incarnated by the State pass before its personal interest. There is an opposition of interests, namely the personal interest of this public official who would like to work less and earn more, and the common interest of the population, who would like to pay less taxes and for example benefit trains that always arrive on time and the general interest which would be for example the construction of a European rail network.

But this conflict would be resolved "naturally" because the public official, having "a sense of the general interest" and being animated by the "sense of public service", sacrifices himself to serve the general interes. He stays late at his office and gets the trains on time. This theory of public service was the inheritance of royalty, a system in which the King is at the service of the People, like the aristocracy is in the "service of the King." There could therefore be no conflict of interest, neither in the administration nor in the public enterprises, nor to observe, manage or dissolve. The question does not arise ...

Let us now take the side of the companies, seen by the Company Law. In the classical conception of corporate governance, corporate officers are necessarily shareholders of the company and the profits are mandatorily distributed among all partners: the partnership agreement is a "contract of common interest". Thus, the corporate officer works in the knowledge that the fruits of his efforts will come back to him through the profits he will receive as a partner. Whatever its egoism - and even the agent must be, this mechanism produces the satisfaction of all the other partners who mechanically will also receive the profits. Selfishness is indeed the motor of the system, as in the classical theory of Market and Competition. Thus, in the corporate mechanism, there is never a conflict of interest since the corporate officer is obligatorily associated: he will always work in the interest of the partners since in this he works for himself. As Company Law posits that the loss of the company will also be incurred and suffered by all partners, he will also avoid this prospect. Again, there is no need for any control. The question of a conflict of interest between the mandatary and those who conferred this function does not structurally arise...

These two representations both proved inaccurate. They were based on quite different philosophies - the public official being supposed to have exceeded his own interest, the corporate officer being supposed to serve the common interest or the social interest by concern for his own interest - but this was by  a unique reasoning that these two representations were defeated.

Let us take the first on Public Law: the "sense of the State" is not so common in the administration and the public enterprises, that the people who work there sacrifice themselves for the social group. They are human beings like the others. Researchers in economics and finance, through this elementary reflection of suspicion, have shattered these political and legal representations. In particular, it has been observed that the institutional lifestyle of public enterprises, very close to the government and their leaders, is often not very justified, whereas it is paid by the taxpayer, that is, by the social group which they claimed to serve. Europe, by affirming in the Treaty of Rome the principle of "neutrality of the capital of enterprises", that is to say, indifference to the fact that the enterprise has as its shareholder a private person or a public person, validated this absence of exceeding of his particular interest by the servant of the State, become simple economic agent. This made it possible to reach the conclusion made for Company Law.

Disillusionment was of the same magnitude. It has been observed that the corporate officer, ordinary human being, is not devoted to the company and does not have the only benefit of the profits he will later receive as a partner. He sometimes gets very little, so he can receive very many advantages (financial, pecuniary or in kind, direct or indirect). The other shareholders see their profits decrease accordingly. They are thus in a conflict of interest. Moreover, the corporate officer was elected by the shareholders' meeting, that is to say, in practice, the majority shareholder or the "controlling" shareholder (controlling shareholder) and not by all. He may not even be associated (but a "senior officer").

The very fact that the situation is no longer qualified by lawyers, through the qualifications of classical Company Law, still borrowing from the Civil Contract Law, the qualifications coming more from financial theories, borrowing from the theory of the agency, adically changed the perspective. The assumptions have been reversed: by the same "nature effect", the conflict of interest has been disclosed as structurally existing between the manager and the minority shareholder. Since the minority shareholder does not have the de facto power to dismiss the corporate officer since he does not have the majority of the voting rights, the question does not even arise whether the manager has or has not a corporate status: the minority shareholder has only the power to sell his securities, if the management of the manager is unfavorable (right of exit) or the power to say, protest and make known. This presupposes that he is informed, which will put at the center of a new Company Law information, even transparency.

Thus, this conflict of interests finds a solution in the actual transfer of securities, beyond the legal principle of negotiability. For this reason, if the company is listed, the conflict of interest is translated dialectically into a relationship between the corporate officer and the financial market which, by its liquidity, allows the agent to be sanctioned, and also provides information, Financial market and the minority shareholder becoming identical. The manager could certainly have a "sense of social interest", a sort of equivalent of the state's sense for a civil servant, if he had an ethics, which would feed a self-regulation. Few people believe in the reality of this hypothesis. By pragmatism, it is more readily accepted that the manager will prefer his interest to that of the minority shareholder. Indeed, he can serve his personal interest rather than the interest for which a power has been given to him through the informational rent he has, and the asymmetry of information he enjoys. All the regulation will intervene to reduce this asymmetry of information and to equip the minority shareholder thanks to the regulator who defends the interests of the market against the corporate officers, if necessary through the criminal law. But the belief in managerial volunteerism has recently taken on a new dimension with corporate social responsability, the social responsibility of the company where managers express their concern for others.

The identification of conflicts of interests, their prevention and their management are transforming Financial Regulatory Law and then the Common Law of Regulation, because today it is no longer believed a priori that people exceed their personal interest to serve the interest of others. It is perhaps to regain trust and even sympathy that companies have invested in social responsibility. The latter is elaborated by rules which are at first very flexible but which can also express a concern for the general interest. In this, it can meet Compliance Law and express on behalf of the companies a concern for the general interest, if the companies provide proof of this concern.

To take an example of a conflict of interest that resulted in substantial legal changes, the potentially dangerous situation of credit rating agencies has been pointed out when they are both paid by banks, advising them and designing products, While being the source of the ratings, the main indices from which the investments are made. Banks being the first financial intermediaries, these conflicts of interest are therefore systematically dangerous. That is why in Europe ESMA exercises control over these rating agencies.

The identification of conflicts of interest, which most often involves changing the way we look at a situation - which seemed normal until the point of view changes - the moral and legal perspective being different, Trust one has in this person or another one modifying this look, is today what moves the most in Regulation Law.
This is true of Public and Corporate Law, which are extended by the Regulation Law, here itself transformed by Compliance Law, notably by the launchers of alerts. But this is also true that all political institutions and elected officials.

For a rule emerges: the more central the notion of conflict of interest becomes, the more it must be realized that Trust is no longer given a priori, either to a person, to a function, to a mechanism, to a system. Trust is no longer given only a posteriori in procedures that burden the action, where one must give to see continuously that one has deserved this trust.