Food for thoughts

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

The notion of "Common Goods" refers to a political conception insofar as it concerns objectively commercial goods such as cultural goods or medical services, but which the community is going to demand that everyone should have access to it even though the individual does not have the ability to pay the exact price. It is then the taxpayer - present or future - or the social partners who bear the cost, or even some companies, through the corporal social social responsibility mechanism.

This protection of Common Goods can be done by the State in the name of the interest of the social group for which it is responsible and whose it expresses the will, particularly through the notion of the general interest. In this now restricted framework which is the State, this reference runs counter to the principle of competition. This is particularly clear in Europe, which is based on a Union built on an autonomous and integrated legal order in the Member States in which competition continues to have a principled value and benefits from the hierarchy of norms. The evolution of European Law has balanced the principle of competition with other principles, such as the management of systemic risks, for example health, financial or environmental risks and the creation of the banking union shows that the principle of competition is no longer an apex in the European system.

But it still remains to an economic and financial conception of Europe, definition that the definition of the Regulatory Law  when it is restricted to the management of the market failures feeds. It is conceivable that Europe will one day evolve towards a more humanistic conception of Regulatory  Law, the same one that the European States practice and defend, notably through the notion of public service. Indeed and traditionally, public services give people access to common goods, such as education, health or culture.

Paradoxically, even though Law is not set up on a global scale, it is at this level that the legal notion of "common goods" has developed.

When one refers to goods that are called "global goods", one then seeks goods that are common to humanity, such as oceans or civilizations. It is at once the heart of Nature and the heart of Human Being, which plunges into the past and the future. Paradoxically, the concept of "global goods" is still more political in substance, but because of a lack of global political governance, effective protection is difficult, as their political consecration can only be effective nationally or simply declaratory internationally. That is why this balance is at present only at national level, which refers to the difficulty of regulating globalization.

Thus, the "common goods" legally exist more under their black face: the "global evils" or "global ills" or "global failures", against which a "Global Law" actually takes place. The notion of "global evils" constitutes a sort of mirror of Common Goods. It is then observed that countries that develop legal discourse to regulate global evils and global goods thus deploy global unilateral national Law. This is the case in the United States, notably in financial regulatory Law or more broadly through the new Compliance Law, which is being born. Companies have a role to play, particularly through Codes of Conduct and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Thesaurus : 8. Code monétaire et financier

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

The telecommunications sector was the first sector to be liberalized in Europe, not so much by political will but because technological progress had in fact already brought competition into the sector and it was better to organize it rather than to To allow competition to settle in disorder.

The telecommunications sector was liberalized by a Community directive, the 1996 transposition law having installed the French Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ART, now ARCEP), whose task was to favor new entrants and build the The challenge today is no longer liberalization but the accompaniment of technological innovation and the incentive for operators to do so, for example in the ADSL Phenomena such as the failure of the "cable plan" are not renewed, that the "fiber plane" is going better, etc.
 
Competitive maturity of this sector means that the Competition Authority frequently intervenes in the field of telecommunications, particularly when merger authorizations must be given by the National or European Competition Authorities, since the Regulator gives only one opinion.
 
On the other hand, the current major issue that has put the discussions around the dialectic between container and content on the agenda is to determine the place that telecommunications have and will have in the digital domain and which could be a specific regulation of Internet, and thereby the Telecommunications Regulator.

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Lagarde, Ch., A regulatory Approch to FinTech, mai 2018. 

 

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Thesaurus : Doctrine

 Full Reference : E. Netter, "Les technologies de conformité pour satisfaire les exigences du droit de la compliance. Exemple du numérique" (Conformity technologies to meet the requirements of Compliance Caw. Digital example), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'obligation de ComplianceJournal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2024, forthcoming.

 

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📕read the general presentation of the book, L'obligation de Compliance, in which this contribution is published.

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 English summary of this contribution (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance) :The author distinguishes between Compliance, which refers to Monumental Goals, and conformity, which are the concrete means that the company uses to tend towards them, through processes, check-lists in the monitoring of which the operator is accountable (art. 5.2. GRPD). Technology enables the operator to meet this requirement, as the changing nature of technology fits in well with the very general nature of the goals pursued, which leave plenty of room for businesses and public authorities to produce soft law.

The contribution focuses firstly on existing technologies. Through Compliance, Law can prohibit a technology or restrict its use because it runs counter to the goal pursued, for example the technology of fully automated decisions producing legal effects on individuals. Because it is a perilous exercise to dictate by law what is good and what is bad in this area, the method is rather one of explicability, i.e. control through knowledge by others.

Regulators are nevertheless developing numerous requirements stemming from the Monumental Goals of Compliance. Operators must update their technology or abandon obsolete technology in the light of new risks or to enable effective competition that does not lock users into a closed system. But technological power must not become too intrusive, as the privacy and freedom of the individuals concerned must be respected, which leads to the principles of necessity and proportionality.

The author stresses that operators must comply with the regulations by using certain technologies if these technologies are available, or even to counteract them if they are contrary to the goals of the regulations, but this obligation of conformity is applied only if these technologies are available. The notion of "available technology" therefore becomes the criterion of the obligation, which means that its content varies with circumstances and time, particularly in the area of cybersecurity.

In the second part of this contribution, the author examines technologies that are only potential, those that Law, and in particular the courts, might require companies to invent in order to fulfill their conformity obligation. This is quite understandable when we are talking about technologies that are in the making, but which will come to fruition, for example in the area of personal data transfer to satisfy the right to portability (GRPD), or where companies must be encouraged to develop technologies that are of less immediate benefit to them, or in the area of secure payment to ensure strong authentication (SPD 2).

This is more difficult for technologies whose feasibility is not even certain, such as online age verification or the interoperability of secure messaging systems, two requirements which appear to be technologically contradictory in their terms, and which therefore still come under the heading of "imaginary technology". But Compliance is putting so much pressure on companies, particularly digital technology companies, that considerable investment is required to achieve it.

The author concludes that this is the very ambition of Compliance and that the future will show how successful it will be. 

 

 

 

 

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🦉This article is available in full texte for persons following Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche teaching.

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Competition is the law of the market. It allows the emergence of the exact price, which is often referred to as "fair price". It means and requires that agents on the market are both mobile, that is to say free to exercise their will, and atomized, that is to say, not grouped together. This is true for those who offer a good or service, the offerers, as well as for those seeking to acquire them, the applicants: the bidders seek to attract the applicants so that they buy them the goods and services that they propose.  Bidders are in competition with each other.

In the competitive market, buyers are indulging in their natural infidelity: even if they have previously bought a product from an A supplier, they will be able to turn away from him in favor of a B supplier if the latter offers them a product more attractive in terms of quality or price. Price is the main signal and information provided by the suppliers on the market to excite this competitive mobility of the offerers. Thus, free competition accelerates market liquidity, the circulation of goods and services, raises the quality of products and services and lowers prices. It is therefore a moral and virtuous system, as Adam Smith wanted, a system which is the fruits of individual vices. That is why everything that will inject "viscosity" into the system will be countered by Competition Law as "non-virtuous": not only frontal coordination on prices but for example, exclusivity clauses, agreements by which companies delay their entry on the market or intellectual property rights which confer on the patentee a monopoly.

Admittedly, Competition Law can not be reduced to a presentation of such simplicity, since it admits economic organizations which deviate from this basic model, for example distribution networks or patent mechanisms on which, inter alia, is built the pharmaceutical sector. But the impact is probative: in the sphere of Competition Law, if one is in a pattern that is not part of the fundamental figure of the free confrontation of supply and demand, he has to demonstrate the legitimacy and efficiency of its organization, which is a heavy burden on the firm or the State concerned.

Thus, in the field of Regulation, if regulatory mechanis were to be regarded as an exception to competition, an exception admitted by the competition authorities, but which should be constantly demonstrated before them by its legitimacy and effectiveness in the light of the "competitive order", then public organizations and operators in regulated sectors would always face a heavy burden of proof. This is what the competition authorities consider.

But if we consider that regulated sectors have a completely different logic from competitive logic, both from an economic and a legal point of view, the Law of Regulation refers in particular to the notion of public service and having its own institutions, which are the regulatory authorities, then certain behaviors, in particular monopolies, are not illegitimate in themselves and do not have to justify themselves in relation to the competitive model, for they are not the exception ( Such as the public education or health service).

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

The economic theory of incentives implicitly assumes that an operator can not be compelled to act against his will, or at least that it is more efficient to offer him advantages in such a way that he does what he wants . In this, this conception is opposed to the traditional conception of Law, which posits, on the contrary, that subjects obey the order dictated by the legal norm.

But in globalized markets, operators have the tools to disobey and the asymmetry of information diminishes the power of control of the Regulators, which raises doubts as to the effectiveness of the legal constraint: it is not enough that the Law orders. In these circumstances, texts, regulators and judges must produce conditions that encourage agents to adopt behaviors that are consistent with the aims sought by the Regulators because the operators themselves have an interest in them.

Thus, whilst regulatory systems in any sector become increasingly repressive, even in liberal economies, it is not so much to punish the perpetrator but to incite others who are tempted to commit crimes, To abandon them. It is the system of exemplarity. This thought prior to Beccaria participates in the re-feoadization of the Law, demonstrated by Pierre Legendre, associated with the decline of the State and to which the Regulation fully participates. Judgeshave little inclination to handle repression in this way, which creates a clash between Criminal Law and Regulatory Law, which nevertheless puts repression at its center.

In the same way, Regulatory Systems must inject positive incentives, for example rewards for communication of information, which encourages delation, or incentives done by the regulator for the network manager make investments in the maintenance of it, against the immediate interest of its shareholder. Finally, all patent law and economics are now thought of as an incentive to inn/en/article/innovation/ovate. But, some incentives have proven perverse such as stock-options or bonuses. As a result, new texts seek to regulate these.

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Control is a concept so central in Regulation that, in the difficult exercise of translation, the English term of "Regulation" or the expression "Regulatory system" are often translated, for example in French,, by the French word "control" (contrôle). Indeed, the Regulator controls the sector for which he  is responsible. This control is carried out ex ante by the adoption of standards of behavior, whether the Regulator prohibits behavior or obliges the operators to do so. In addition, the Regulators exercises his control powers through the power to approve companies entering the sector or the power to certify certain types of products sold on the markets for which he is responsible. In addition, he continuously monitors the sectors for which he is responsible since his function is either to construct them to bring them to maturity or to remain in balance between the principle of competition and another concern, for example to ensure that they do not fall into a systemic crisis.

These ex ante controls radically distinguish the regulatory authority from the competition authority, which intervenes only ex post. Finally, the regulatory authority controls the sector in ex post: in this he works on a temporal continuum, sanctioning the failings he finds on the part of the operators to the prescriptions he has adopted himself. he often has the power to settle disputes if two operators compete in a dispute between them and bring it before him.

This control function specific of the regulatory authority, which it often shares with the traditional administration and which opposes it to the activity of the competition authority and the courts, is made difficult by its possible lack of independence. Indeed, because the Regulator is a State boddy, if the regulator has to control a public operator, it may risk being captured by the government, since the whole organization of the regulatory system must therefore ensure its independence not only statutory but also budgetary in relation to it. This risk of capture is permanent not only because of the government but also because of the sector. Secondly, control can be inefficient if the regulator lacks adequate, reliable and timely information, risk generated by information asymmetry.

To fight against this, according to the childish image of the stick and the carrot, we must at the same time give the regulator powers to extirpate information that the operators do not want to provide, the texts never ceasing to give regulators new powers, such as perquisitions power ou sanction ou settlemeent. Symmetrically, operators are encouraged to provide information to the market and the regulator, for example through leniency programs or the multiplication of information to be inserted in company documents. Finally, there is a difficult balance between the need to combat the capture of the regulator and the need to reduce the asymmetry of information since the best way for the latter to obtain information from the sector is by frequent attendance by operators: , This exchange that they accept very willingly is the open voice to the capture. It is therefore an art for the regulator to keep operators at a distance while obtaining from them information that only untended relationships allow him to obtain.

Moreover, the Compliance Law which is in the process of being put in place is intended to resolve this major difficulty, since the operator becomes the primary agent for the implementation of the Regulation Law, whose aims are internalized in the " crucial " and global operators perator, operator crucial and global, the Regulator ensuring the effective structural change of the operator to realize these goals of this Global Regulation Law.

 

 

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : D. Esty et M. Hautereau-Boutonnet, "Derrière les procès climatiques français et américains : des systèmes politique, juridique et judiciaire en opposition", D.2022, p.1606 et s.

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

 Full Reference: F. Raynaud, "The administrative judge and compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, coll. "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, 2023, p. 

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

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 Summary of the article:

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Watch the video explaining the "right to be forgotten".

The "right to be forgotten" is a recent and specifically European invention. It was designed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Google Spain judgment of May 13, 2014, so that in this world without time, in which all information is eternally stored and available that is the digital world, the individual thus exposed can be protected against this new phenomenon, since forgetting no longer exists, by Law which by its power endows it with a "right to be forgotten". In this the term Right to be forgotten is more accurate.

Because Law is made to protect human beings, the technological efficiency which created the digital world is limited by the new legal prerogative of the person to make unattainable information which concerns him when it takes on a "personal character". This was taken up by the community regulation of April 27, 2016, often called GDPR, transposed in the member states of the European Union no later than May 25, 2018.

More than in the laws which have taken up the idea of ​​protection of persons in the handling of "data" by others, expressing more the concern to protect the consumer in a market economy, it is a question of directly protecting persons. in a technological world allowing blind obedience, Europe rejecting this model because the technique of the files left him a terrible memory because of the Second World War. However, Law is the memory of peoples and expresses the “spirit” of these (Savigny).

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Full Reference: Delalieu, G., La loi sur le devoir de vigilance des sociétés multinationales : parcours d’une loi improbable, Droit et Société, 2020/3, n°106, p.649-665.

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English Summary of the Article (done by the Author): (Corporate Duty of Vigilance in France: The Path of an Improbable Statute). This article offers an analysis of the resistance encountered by defenders (NGOs and trade unions) of the French Law on Corporate Duty of Vigilance. These actors sought to behave as institutional entrepreneurs deploying intense advocacy and lobbying efforts to successfully have this bill tabled, examined, and ultimately passed by the French government. Considering this case, the concept of “institutional entrepreneurship” is discussed and then relativized using Machiavelli’s notion of “Fortuna,” to describe the “improbable” adoption of this statute. The results tend to put into perspective the importance that individual actors, including collective ones, can have in the explanation of institutional change, in favor of a multilevel analysis of change (micro, meso, macro).

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Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

"Compliance" is the typical example of a translation problem.

Indeed and for example, the term "Compliance" is most often translated by the French term "Conformité". But to read the texts, notably in Financial Law, "Conformité" is aimed rather at professional obligations, mainly aimed at the ethics and conduct of market professionals, especially service providers of investment. It is both a clearer definition in its contours (and in this more certain) and less ambitious than that expressed by the "Compliance". It is therefore, for the moment, more prudent to retain, even in French, the expression "Compliance".

The definition of Compliance is both contentious and highly variable, since according to the authors, it goes solely from the professional obligations of financial market participants to the obligation to comply with laws and regulations. In this latter sense, that is, the general obligation that we all have to respect the Law. To admit that, Compliance would be Law itself.

Viewed from the point of view of Law, Compliance is a set of principles, rules, institutions and general or individual decisions, corpus of which the primary concern is efficiency, in space and in time. The purpose is to put into practice general interest goal targeted by these gathered techniques.

The list of these goals, whether negative ("fighting": corruption, terrorism, embezzlement of public funds, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, organ trafficking, trafficking in poisonous and contagious goods - medicines, financial products, etc.) or positive ("fighting for": access to essential goods for everyone, preservation of the environment, fundamental human rights, education, peace , transmission of the planet to future generations) shows that these are political goals.


These goals correspond to the political definition of the Regulatory Law.

These political goals require means which exceed the forces of the States, which are also confined within their borders.

These monumental goals have therefore been internalized by public authorities in global operators. The Compliance Law corresponds to a new structuring of these global operators. This explains why the new laws put in place not only objective but structural repressions, as in France the "Sapin 2 Law" (2016) or the "obligation of vigilance Law" (2017) .

This internationalization of the Regulatory Law  in companies implies that the public authorities now supervise the latter, even if they do not belong to a supervised sector, or even to a regulated sector, but participate, for example, in international trade.


The Law of Compliance thus expresses a global political will relayed by this violent new Law, most often repressive, on companies.

But it can also express on the part of the operators, in particular the "crucial operators" a desire to have themselves concern for these monumental global goals, whether of a negative or a positive nature. This ethical dimension, expressed in particular by the Corporate Social Responsibility, is the continuation of the spirit of the public service and the concern for the general interest, raised world-wide.

Teachings : Compliance Law

Sont ici répertoriés les sujets proposés chaque année,

- soit au titre du travail à faire en parallèle du cours, à remettre à la fin du semestre (le jour de l'examen étant la date limite de remise),

- soit les sujets à traiter sur table, sans documentation extérieure et sous surveillance le jour de l'examen final. 

 

Retourner sur la description générale du Cours de Droit de la Compliance, comprenant notamment des fiches méthodologiques. 

 

 

Compliance and Regulation Law bilingual Dictionnary

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Full Reference: J.-B. Racine, "Compliance Obligation and Human Rights​", 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 asks whether human rights can, over and above the many compliance obligations, form the basis of the Compliance Obligation. The consideration of human rights corresponds to the fundamentalisation of Law, crossing both Private and Public Law, and are considered by some as the matrix of many legal mechanisms, including international ones. They prescribe values that can thus be disseminated.

Human rights come into direct contact with Compliance Law as soon as Compliance Law is defined as "the internalisation in certain operators of the obligation to structure themselves in order to achieve goals which are not natural to them, goals which are set by public authorities responsible for the future of social groups, goals which these companies must willingly or by force aim to achieve, simply because they are in a position to achieve them". These "Monumental Goals" converge on human beings, and therefore the protection of their rights by companies. 

In a globalised context, the State can either act through mandatory regulations, or do nothing, or force companies to act through Compliance Law. For this to be effective, tools are needed to enable 'crucial' operators to take responsibility ex ante, as illustrated in particular by the French law on the Vigilance Obligation of 2017.

This obligation takes the form of both a "legal obligation", expression which is quite  imprecise, found for example in the duty of vigilance of the French 2017 law, and in a more technical sense through an obligation that the company establishes, in particular through contracts.

Legal obligations are justified by the fact that the protection of human rights is primarily the responsibility of States, particularly in the international arena. Even if it is only a question of Soft Law, non-binding Law, this tendency can be found in the Ruggie principles, which go beyond the obligation of States not to violate human rights, to a positive obligation to protect them effectively. The question of whether this could apply not only to States but also to companies is hotly debated. If we look at the ICSID Urbaser v. Argentina award of 2016, the arbitrators accepted that a company had an obligation not to violate human rights, but rejected an obligation to protect them effectively. In European Law, the GDPR, DSA and AIA, and in France the so-called Vigilance law, use Compliance Lools, often Compliance by Design, to protect human rights ex ante.

Contracts, particularly through the inclusion of multiple clauses in often international contracts, express the "privatisation" of human rights. Care should be taken to ensure that appropriate sanctions are associated with them and that they do not give rise to situations of contractual imbalance. The relationship of obligation in tort makes it necessary to articulate the Ex Ante logic and the Ex Post logic and to conceive what the judge can order.

The author concludes that "la compliance oblige à remodeler les catégories classiques du droit dans l’optique de les adosser à l’objectif même de la compliance : non pas uniquement un droit tourné vers le passé, mais un droit ancré dans les enjeux du futur ; non pas un droit émanant exclusivement de la contrainte publique, mais un droit s’appuyant sur de la normativité privée ; non pas un droit strictement territorialisé, mais un droit appréhendant l’espace transnational" ("Compliance requires us to reshape the classic categories of Law with a view to bringing them into line with the very objective of Compliance: not just a Law turned towards the past, but a Law anchored in the challenges of the future; not a Law emanating exclusively from public constraint, but a Law based on private normativity; not a strictly territorialised Law, but a law apprehending the transnational space".

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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 : Marcou, G., L'ordre public économique aujourd'hui. Un essai de redéfinition, in, Revet, TH. et Vidal, L. Annales de la régulation, IRJS, 2009, p.79 et s.

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Gibert, M., Faire la morale aux robots. Une introduction à l'éthique des algorithmesFlammarion, 2021, 168 p.

 

Lire le commentaire de l'ouvrage sur le site NonFiction. 

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence complète : Salah, M., La mondialisation vue de l'Islam, in Archives de Philosophie du Droit, La mondialisation entre illusion et utopie, tome 47, Dalloz, 2003, 27-54.

 

La mondialisation apparaît comme une occidentalisation des cultures et du droit. L'Islam qui prend forme juridique devrait se l'approprier sans se dénaturer. La réussite d'un tel processus difficile dépendra de la qualité de la régulation qui sera mise en place.

 

Lire une présentation générale de l'ouvrage dans lequel l'article a été publié.

Les étudiants de Sciences po peuvent via le drive lire l'article dans le dossier "MAFR - Régulation".

Thesaurus : Doctrine

 Full Reference: O. Douvreleur,  "Compliance and Judge ruling only on points of Law", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Jurisdictionalisationseries "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, to be published. 

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 Article Summary (done by the Journal of Regulation): Compliance maintains with the judge complex relations, and even more with the judge ruling only on points of Law  (in France, the Court de Cassation in the judicial order, the one who, in principle, does not know the facts that he leaves to the sovereign appreciation of the judges ruling on the substance of the disputes. At first glance, compliance is a technique internalised in companies and the place occupied by negotiated justice techniques leave little room for intervention by the judge ruling only on points of Law

However, his role is intended to develop, in particular with regard to the duty of vigilance or in the articulation between the different branches of Law when compliance meets Labor Law, or even in the adjustment between American Law and the other legal systems, especially French legal system. The way in which the principle of Proportionality will take place in Compliance Law is also a major issue for the judge ruling only on points of Law.

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

 

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Thesaurus : Doctrine

Référence générale, Cohendet, M.-A. et Fleury, M., Droit constitutionnel et droit international de l'environnement, Revue française de droit constitutionnel , PUF, » 2020/2, n°122, p.271-297. 

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Résumé de l'article : 

Teachings : Droit de la régulation bancaire et financière, semestre de printemps 2017-2018

Le plan est  actualisé chaque semaine au fur et à mesure que les leçons se déroulent en amphi.

Il est disponible ci-dessous.

 

 

Retourner à la présentation générale du cours, tel qu'il était bâti et proposé en 2018.

 

 

 

 

 

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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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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