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The United States established regulatory authorities at the end of the 19th century: starting from the principle of the market, they tempered it by setting up regulators, after noting market failures, for example in terms of transport, in the event of economically natural monopolies or essential facilities. The tradition of the European Union is the reverse since the States, in particular the French State, have considered that sectors of general interest, deemed unsuitable for the competitive pattern because not corresponding to the operational pattern of the meeting of supply and demand, and to serve the missions of public services, were to be held by the State, either directly by public establishments, or by public enterprises under the supervision of the ministries.

Evolution in Europe came from community Law. Indeed, after the Second World War, the idea was to build a market which was to be "common" to European countries so that they could no longer wage war on each other in the future. To achieve this goal, the borders between them were lifted thanks to the principles of free movement of people, goods and capital. In the same way, the defense by each of the States of its own national companies by State aid has been prohibited so that any company, even foreign, can enter its territory, so that a common internal market can be established. Finally, a competition Law was necessary to prohibit companies and States from hindering the free functioning of the market, which would have slowed down or even stopped the construction of this internal market, which was an essentially political goal of the Treaty of Rome.

To carry out this political goal, the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, previously called the Court of Justice of the European Communities - CJEC - until the Treaty of Lisbon) have prohibited any behavior of agreement or of abuse of a dominant position, even on the part of public enterprises, as well as any state support (except in the event of a crisis). Likewise, in perfect political logic, but also in perfect contradiction with European national traditions, European texts, regulations or directives have liberalized previously monopolistic sectors, first of all telecommunications and then energy. This was the case for telecommunications with the 1993 directive, the 1996 directive for electricity and the 1998 directive for gas.

Because of the hierarchy of standards, the States, except to be sued before the Court of Justice by the European Commission in action for failure, were obliged to transpose by national laws these European texts. Thus, by force, community law, both through general competition Law, but above all to achieve its political goal of building a single and initially peaceful internal market, has triggered in Europe a system of economic regulation in all network industry sectors, a system which was nonetheless foreign to the culture of the Member States. This was not the case with banking and insurance regulations, sectors which have always been threatened by systemic risk, and as such have been regulated and supervised by national central banks for a very long time.

Community Law has for 30 years plunged into national Law while ignoring them, which could also be profitable, and on the basis of competition Law, the political dimension of the European project having been forgotten, no doubt over time as the War itself faded from people's minds.

The effects of globalization and the financial crisis have constituted a new turning point in Community Law which, since 2010, has been built no longer to modify national Laws - and destroy them in part - but to build a new Community Law which should neither to Competition Law nor to National Law: Community Regulation Law, which makes room for individual rights and attempts to build over time a system that is robust to crises. Thus, by texts of the European Union of 2014, both a Banking Union and a new Law on Market Abuse is being built, which aims to establish a common law for the integrity of financial markets.

One of the challenges is what could or should be reconciliation between the two Europe, an economic and still not very social Europe on the one hand and the Europe of Human Rights, which is based on the European Convention on Rights of Man. This is not on the agenda.

"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.

Référence complète : Response to the Study on Directors’ Duties and Sustainable Corporate Governance by Nordic Company Law Scholars, octobre 2020.

Lire le rapport

A monopoly refers to the power of a person to remove from a good its utility by excluding others. The monopoly refers to a situation on the market, the monopolist being the sole operator in the market. Lawyers are accustomed to the monopoly conferred by Law, for example the one that was the monopoly for the national public enterprise for electricity. In this case, what is done may be defeated, and the legislature may withdraw that privilege especially if the author of this norm is better placed in the hierarchy of norms than the previous author. For example, the European Union legislature withdrew the legal monopolies by means of directives from most of the operators holding them in the regulated sectors in order to liberalize them.

But the monopoly can have an economic source. Indeed, it may happen that a first operator constructs a structure, for example a wired telecommunications transport network. Because he is alone, agents on the market must resort to him to carry their communications, his business will be profitable. But from there, if a second operator built such an infrastructure, it would inevitably be in deficit for insufficient applicants. This is why no rational economic agent will build a second network. Thus, this network will remain unique. It is then an economically acquired monopoly that the legislative will can not change its nature. That is why it is called "natural".

Since what is can not be changed, Community law has taken note of the monopolistic nature of the majority of networks and the correlated power of their owner or manager, but has correlatively provided for their supervision by a regulator who not only Ex post to resolve possible differences between the infrastructure manager, the natural essential facility, and the one who wants to access it, but also, through an Ex ante power, to negotiate with that manager the return on his capital, his commitments investment in the network, etc., or even more directly by imposing on it the way in which it fixes access tariffs and so on.

These economically natural monopolies are therefore more powerful than legal monopolies, which States and lawyers have taken a long time to understand, but this also explains the reverse tendency of economists to write laws, The texts must handle this type of notions, its writers caring little about the political order and legal notions. The fact that the laws and regulations on regulated situations and supervised operators have long been elaborated solely from the point of view of lawyers, particularly of the public service, which was regrettable, does not justify this passage from one extreme to the other.

Référence complète : Queinnec, Y et Constantin, A., Devoir de vigilance. Les organes de gouvernance des entreprises en première ligne, in Le Big Bang des devoirs de vigilance ESG : les nouveaux enjeux de RSE et de droit de l'homme, doss., Revue Lamy Droit des Affaires, n°104, mai 2015, p.68-74.

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► Full Reference: B. Deffains, "La dette comme fondement de l'obligation de compliance" ("From the Debt to the Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2024, to be published

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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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► Summary of this contribution  (done by the Journal  of Regulation  & Compliance):  The contribution builds on the definition of Compliance in that it requires large companies to contribute to the achievement of Monumental Goals, including the preservation of human rights and systems, e.g. climate system.  

This requirement is confronted with the notion of Debt as it results today from classic and new works available in economic science. In fact, in the primitive economy, debt refers not only to exchanges, but also to an ethical and social obligation leading back to the collective. The Economic Analysis of Law has highlighted this situation, where some of the entities involved in a situation benefit from positive externalities, or endure negative externalities on their own, thus creating a situation of debt: this generates an obligation to correct market failure through an obligation to manage risks, as expressed by Compliance Obligation. This implies that economic calculation can be used to quantify this debt, leading to new proposals for biodiversity accounting.

The author then highlights the recognition of Debt as the source of an Compliance Obligation. This can be expressed through the classical notion of natural obligation, which can be traced back to the French Civil Code, or through more solidarist or political conceptions of Law, linked to moral responsibility, with the overall moral equilibrium referring to civic duty, superimposed on the accounting equilibrium. The political dimension is very much present, as shown by Grotius and Kant, then Bourgeois (solidarism), Rawls and Sen (social justice), who link the deep commitment of each individual with the group. This sheds light on the essential role played by the State and public institutions in formalising and enforcing the Compliance Obligation, not only to ensure its effectiveness, but also to make everyone aware of its fairness dimension.

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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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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.

► 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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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.

Banks are regulated because they do not engage in an ordinary economic activity, as their are likely to create systemic risk. In the real economy indeed, banks play the role of providing credit to entrepreneurs who operate on the markets for goods and services. These credits are mainly financed through deposits made by depositors and, to a lesser extent, by shareholders (i.e., capitalists). That is how liberalism and capitalism are bound up. However, banks also have the power to create money by the book entries they make when they grant loans ('book money'). As such, the banks share with the State this extraordinary power to exercise monetary authority, which some describe as sovereign power. It is possible that the digital eventually calls this power into question, since the Regulation currently hesitates to seize control over new instruments that are called "virtual currency" and that are used as proper "currency" or as an ordinary instrument for cooperative relation.

Banks' prominent sovereign character justifies, first and foremost, that the State is granted the power to choose the institutions which benefit from the privilege of creating book money- in this regard, the banking industry has always been a monopoly. Hence, Banking Regulation is first an ex ante control to enter the profession, and also a careful monitor of the people and institutions that claim they are in.

In addition, banks and credit institutions lend more money than their own funds can allow: the whole banking system is necessarily based on the trust that each creditors place within the bank, including depositaries who leave their funds at the banks' disposal for it to use them. That is where Bank Regulation intervenes to establish what is called 'prudential ratios', i.e., ratios that ensure the soundness of the institution by determining the amount of money that banks can lend based on the equity and quasi-equity they actually have.

Moreover, banks are constantly monitored by their supervisory Regulator, the Central Bank (in France, the Banque de France) that ensures the safety of the whole system by setting the State as the lender of last resort. This can, however, incentivize a large financial institution to take excessive risks based on its reliance on the fact that the State will save it eventually- that is what the 'moral hazard' theory systematized. All monetary and financial systems are built on these central banks that are independent from governments, which are far too reliant on political strategies and which cannot generate the same trust that a Central Bank inspires. Since the missions of central banks have increased over the years, and since the notions of Regulation and Supervision have come together, we tend to consider that Central Banks are now fully fledged Regulators.

Besides, Banking Regulation has become all the more central since banking is no longer primarily about loaning but rather about financial intermediation.  Banking Regulation and Financial Regulation are mixing. In Europe , European Central Bank is in the center.

Référence : Beauvais, P., Méthode transactionnelle et justice pénale, in  Gaudemet, A. (dir.), La compliance : un nouveau monde? Aspects d'une mutation du droit, coll. "Colloques", éd. Panthéon-Assas, Panthéon-Assas, 2016, pp. 79-90.

Voir la présentation générale de  l'ouvrage dans lequel l'article a été publié.

Une dissertation juridique suit les règles de construction et de rédaction généralement requises pour les dissertations d'une façon générale mais présente certaines spécificités.

Le présent document a pour objet de donner quelques indications. Elles ne valent pas "règles d'or", mais un étudiant qui les suit ne peut se le voir reprocher. La correction des copies tiendra compte non seulement du fait que les étudiants ne sont pas juristes, ne sont pas habitués à faire des "dissertations juridiques", mais encore prendra en considération le présent document.

 

First of all, the Regulation and Compliance Law is difficult to understand in others languages than English, through translation, for example in French.  This corpus of rules and institutions suffers from ambiguity and confusion because of its vocabulary of Anglophone origin, in which words or expressions that are similar or identical have not the same meaning in English and, for example, in French..

To every lord all honor, this is the case for the term "Regulation".

In English, "regulation" refers to the phenomenon which the French language expresses by the term "Régulation". But it can also aim at the complete fitting of what will hold a sector reaching a market failure and in which regulation is only one tool among others. The expression "regulatory system" will be used with precision, but also the term "Regulation", the use of the capital letter indicating the difference between the simple administrative power to take texts ("regulation") and the entire system which supports the sector ("Regulation"). It is inevitable that in a quick reading, or even by the play of digital, which overwrites the capital letters, and the automatic translations, this distinction of formulation, which stands for a lower / upper case, disappears. And confusion arises.

The consequences are considerable. It is notably because of this homonymy, that frequently in the French language one puts at the same level the Droit de la Régulation ("regulatory law, Regulation") and the réglementation (regulation). It will be based on such an association, of a tautological nature, to assert that "by nature" the Regulatory Law  is "public law", since the author of the reglementation (regulation) is a person of public law, in particular the State or Independent administrative authorities such as Regulators. There remains the current and difficult justification for the considerable presence of contracts, arbitrators, etc. Except to criticize the very idea of Regulatory Law, because it would be the sign of a sort of victory of the private interests, since conceived by instruments of private law.

Thus two major disadvantages appear. First of all, it maintains in the Law of Regulation the summa divisio of Public and Private Law, which is no longer able to account for the evolution of Law in this field and leads observers, notably economists or international Institutions, to assert that the Common Law system would be more adapted today to the world economy notably because if it does indeed place administrative law, constitutional law, etc., it does not conceive them through the distinction Law Public / private law, as the Continental system of Civil Law continues to do.

Secondly, no doubt because this new Law draws on economic and financial theories that are mainly built in the United Kingdom and the United States, the habit is taken to no longer translate. In other languages, for example, texts written in French are phrases such as "le Régulateur doit être  accountable".

It is inaccurate that the idea of ​​accountability is reducible to the idea of ​​"responsibility". The authors do not translate it, they do not recopy and insert it in texts written in French.

One passes from the "translation-treason" to the absence of translation, that is to say to the domination of the system of thought whose word is native, here the U.K. and the U.S.A.

One of the current major issues of this phenomenon is in the very term of "Compliance". The French term "conformité" does not translate it. To respect what compliance is, it is appropriate for the moment to recopy the word itself, so as not to denature the concept by a translation. The challenge is to find a francophone word that expresses this new idea, particularly with regard to legal systems that are not common law, so that their general framework remains.

Complete reference : Archives de Philosophie du Droit (APD), Droit et économie, tome 37, ed. Sirey, 1992, 426 p. 

 

Read the table of contents.

Read the summaries of the articles in english. 

 

See the presentation of others volumes of Archives de Philosophie du Droit.

Le légicentrisme exprime avant tout une bataille de normes, puisque cette doctrine pose que la loi est la seule et unique expression de la souveraineté de la Nation. En cela, la loi dispose d'une autorité indépassable et c'est elle qui fonde l'État légal.

Ainsi, si l'on devait donner une figure au système juridique, ce serait un cercle avec en son cœur d'une façon unique la loi souveraine, à la fois autosuffisante dans son fondement (souveraineté) et dans sa production (principe de légalité).

Cette conception moniste (unité de la loi) a pour principale source la philosophie politique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, c'est encore sur celui-ci que la France conserve le principe de souveraineté parlementaire (le Gouvernement est responsable devant le Parlement) et de souveraineté de la loi. Mais depuis la Révolution française, les esprits et les faits ont changé.

Ainsi, s'est construite une doctrine inverse : le "pluralisme juridique" qui pose en contradiction que le droit vient de nombreuses sources, comme la coutume, les pratiques, les jugements, etc. Il n'est pas étonnant que les auteurs qui affirment le pluralisme juridique ne viennent pas de la philosophie politique mais davantage de la sociologie comme Gurvitch ou Carbonnier.

En outre, les frontières nationales ont perdu de leur consistance, de fait et de droit. C'est pourquoi un auteur comme Mireille Delmas-Marty s'appuie sur le fait même de la construction de l'Europe des droits de l'homme d'une part et de la globalisation d'autre part pour affirmer que le légicentrisme a fait place à un pluralisme juridique généralisé.

Cependant, en droit positif les textes restent les mêmes. C'est ainsi que l'article 6 de la Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789, qui fait partie du bloc de constitutionnalité, dispose de la loi que "la loi est l'expression de la volonté générale".

De la même façon, l'article 5 du Code civil continue d'interdire au juge de rendre des jugements contraignants pour d'autres cas que celui particulier sur lequel il se prononce.

Cette permanence des textes les plus gradés, à savoir l'article 5 du Code civil et l'article 6 de la déclaration pose de nombreux problèmes aux juges. En effet, depuis l'arrêt du Tribunal des conflits Blanco, le droit administratif n'est plus lié par ce qui est posé par le Code civil et sans doute la puissance normative du Conseil d'Etat s'exprime plus ouvertement que celle de la Cour de cassation, qui feint de ne rendre que des arrêts de principe pour pouvoir affirmer qu'elle ne rend pas d'arrêt de règlement.

D'une façon plus complexe, le Conseil constitutionnel rappelle régulièrement que certes il est le gardien de la norme constitutionnelle supérieure à la loi mais quand le même temps, seul le législateur, puisque celui est le souverain, peut exprimer la volonté générale, ce à quoi le Conseil constitutionnel ne peut se substituer.

Mais le Droit de l'Union européenne, qui constitue un Ordre juridique à la fois autonome et dont les normes sont pourtant intégrées dans les ordres juridiques des Etats-membres, rend difficilement soutenable la conception du légicentrisme. Y a succédée une hiérarchie des normes complexes. Mais les fondements politiques de l'idée de légicentrisme alimente en grande partie l'hostilité à l'égard de l'Europe, aussi bien celle de l'Union que celle de la CEDH.

 

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.

 

 

(Avant le début des enseignements de Droit de la Régulation bancaire et financière, un aperçu du plan général du Cours avait été mis à disposition.)

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.

 

 

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.

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

 

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

The procedural guarantees from which the person benefits are mainly the right of action, the rights of defense and the benefit of the adversarial principle.

While the rights of the defense are subjective rights which are advantages given to the person at risk of having his situation affected by the decision that the body which is formally or functionally legally qualified as a "tribunal", may take, the adversarial principle is rather a principle of organization of the procedure, from which the person can benefit.

This principle, as the term indicates, is - as are the rights of the defense - of such a nature as to generate all the technical mechanisms which serve it, including in the silence of the texts, imply a broad interpretation of these.

The adversarial principle implies that the debate between all the arguments, in particular all the possible interpretations, is possible. It is exceptionally and justified, for example because of urgency or a justified requirement of secrecy (professional secrecy, secrecy of private life, industrial secrecy, defense secrecy, etc.) that the adversarial mechanism is ruled out. , sometimes only for a time (technique of deferred litigation by the admission of the procedure on request).

This participation in the debate must be fully possible for the debater, in particular access to the file, knowledge of the existence of the instance, the intelligibility of the terms of the debate, not only the facts, but also the language (translator, lawyer , intelligibility of the subject), but still discussion on the applicable legal rules). So when the court automatically comes under the rules of Law, it must submit them to adversarial debate before possibly applying them.

The application of the adversarial principle often crosses the rights of the defense, but in that it is linked to the notion of debate, it develops all the more as the procedure is of the adversarial type.

► Full Reference: M. Torre-Schaub, "Environmental and Climate Compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal 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 starts from the fact that Compliance Law, in that it is not limited to conformity process, and Environmental Law are complementary, both based above all on the prevention of risks and harmful behaviour, environmental crises and the right to a healthy environment involving the strengthening of Environmental Vigilance. It is all the more important to do this because definitions remain imprecise, not least those of Environment and Climate, which are diffuse concepts.

Firstly, the contribution sets out the purpose of Environmental Compliance, which is to ensure that companies are vigilant with regard to all kinds of risks: they put in place and follow a series of processes to obtain "progress" in accordance with a standard of "reasonable vigilance". This requires them to go beyond mere conformity and encourages them to develop their own soft law tools within a framework of information and transparency, so that the climate system itself benefits in accordance with its own objectives.

Then the author stresses the preventive nature of Environmental Vigilance mechanisms, which go beyond providing Information to managing risks upstream, in particular through the vigilance plan, which may be unified or drawn up risk by risk, and which must be adapted to the company, particularly in the risk mapping drawn up, with assessment being carried out on a case-by-case basis.

Lastly, in the light of recent French case law, the author describes the implementation of the system, which may bring the parties before the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris (Paris Court of First Instance) and then the specialised chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal. The author believes that judges must clarify the obligation of Environmental Vigilance so that companies can adjust to it, and these 2 courts are in the process of doing so.

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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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► Référence complète : A. Oumedjkane, "Le devoir de vigilance est-il soluble dans le droit des contrats publics ?", 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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► Résumé de l'article (fair par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : Il analyse le devoir de vigilance, lequel constitue la pointe avancée du Droit de la Compliance dans la commande publique.

Cela est contrintuitif, puisque le devoir de vigilance est légal et que la loi donne compétence au juge judiciaire. Mais l'auteur souligne que les lois récentes, notamment les lois "résilience et climat" et "finance verte" visent expressément le devoir de vigilance pour constituer des causes d'exclusion de l'entreprise qui manque à son obligation de vigilance des commandes publiques.

L'auteur regrette que les textes à ce propos aient fait l'objet d'une rédaction approximative et variant de texte en texte, alors qu'il s'agit de régir la même situation : celle de l'exclusion d'une entreprise du champ de la commande publique parce qu'elle n'a pas rempli son obligation de vigilance; ce qui suppose des obligations pleinement réalisées, ou de n'avoir pas établi un plan de vigilance, ce qui n'est pas la même chose et manifeste moins d'exigence.

Il souligne également la question du contrôle qualitatif du plan de vigilance, contrôle approfondi ou au contraire obligation purement formelle. Là encore, il pense, comme la majorité de la doctrine, qu'il est raisonnable de se rapporter à une interprétation minimale, même si la loi sur le devoir de vigilance marque plus d'ambition.

Il estime que si le juge administratif était en effet confronté à un contrôle substantiel, en raison de la compétence, qu'il estime exclusive, du Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, il faudrait former des questions préjudicielles...

Dans ces conditions d'interprétation minimale, seule une absence de plan ou un plan formellement défaillant serait sanctionné dans le cadre de la commande publique... Mais cette interprétation est la moins adaptée à l’objectif de la législation elle-même, et que l'on pourrait en arriver que ce qu'une entreprise qui aurait été condamnée par le Tribunal judiciaire pourrait n'être pourtant pas exclue d'un marché public...

L'auteur estime enfin que cette nouvelle démarche incitative montre en réalité l'impuissance du Droit des contrats publics à produire par lui-même les effets recherchés sur les entreprises.

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