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Articles

Article in a Newsletter MAFR

📝Asset freezing in the legal saga between American power and Venezuelan wealt

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Asset freezing in the legal saga between American power and Venezuelan wealth", MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation Newsletter, 23 January 2026 - 🌐read this article published on LinkedIn the 23 January 2026  - 📧Read other articles from the MAFR Newsletter – Law, Compliance, Regulation for free with a subscription. - ► Summary of this article  : It is often emphasised that the  law is merely a masquerade in the series of events we are witnessing. This is not entirely true. For three reasons. 1. Much will depend on the judge who will rule on the Madura couple's case. The energy sector has always similarly mixed regulation, public policies of states and businesses, both articulated by States and companies, both articulated by  international contracts, always organising international arbitration 3. If ExxonMobil now refuses to make the investments desired by Trump, it is also because this enterprise remembers that many years ago the freeze  of assets granted by the arbitrators was not very successful, and now the company manager believes that investment in  Venezuala's infrastructure is therefore "impossible". And given the current state of the law in the US, there is little Trump can do about it.. - 📝⤵Read the complete article below⤵ - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Law & Art

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Illustrated Law🎬Law & Cinema

🎭𝐅𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧🎬The talks in the Town: what can a law professor do about it?”

  ► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Fiction🎬The talks in the Town  : what can a law professor do about it?", article from the Newsletter Law & Art, December 2025. - 🎬Watch the trailer - ► Summary of this article : This 1942 film seems to have left little trace. However, the main character, an innocent man whom the villain manipulates into being designated as the culprit by the small town's population, leading him to behave like a guilty person, is played by Cary Grant. This film inspired lawyers even more. And even more so law professors, because it was a law professor, the dean of Harvard Law School, who saved the innocent man who had been caught in the trap. And even more so today, since it was by playing on rumours, by creating them from the outset, in what we would call disinformation, that the powerful villain intended to win and, in the process, become mayor of the town, after escaping bankruptcy by setting fire to his own factory, a crime he blames on the innocent man thrown to the wolves of public opinion as citizens gather in the square. It's almost as if we were there… - 🔓read the article below⤵️ - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Law & Art

Articles

Interview

💬”Géomètres-experts : une profession qui assume concrètement sa responsabilité territoriale” (Chartered Surveyors: a Profession that takes its territorial responsibility seriously)

► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, ""Géomètres-experts : une profession qui assume concrètement sa responsabilité territoriale Géomètres-experts : une profession qui assume concrètement sa responsabilité territoriale (Chartered Surveyors: a Profession that takes its territorial responsibility seriously)", interview for JurisHebdo, 27 November 2025 - ► Read the interview  (in French) in which the questions (translated below in English) were answered⤵ - Q.You helped define the raison d'être of the profession of chartered surveyors and its Professional Order. In your opinion, what is its true consequences?   Q. Can the raison d'être become a tool for Compliance or Governance?   Q. What conflicts arise around the source of compliance norms and their implementation?    Q. Is this initiative part of a broader move towards social responsibility?   Q. How can the raison d'être influence the mission of the chartered surveyor, particularly in relation to land and environmental matters?  - ⛏️Further reading on the subject: 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 🎤Designing a raison d'être and explaining it, 2025 🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝The Monumental Goals of Compliance, the beating heart of Compliance Law, 2023 - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Law & Art

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💬”Ordonner la Compliance : pourquoi le faire et comment le faire ? (Organising Compliance: why do it and how to do it?)”

► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche,  ""Ordonner la Compliance : pourquoi le faire et comment le faire ? (Organising Compliance: why do it and how to do it?)", interview Focus on… conducted for Dalloz Actu Étudiants, 13 November 2025 - ► read the interview : 💬 Read the interview (in French) - 🌐read the interview presentation on LinkedIn (in French) 🌐read the interview presentation through the MAFR Newsletter Law, Compliance, Regulation, (in English) - ► presentation  of the interview by Dalloz Actu-Étudiants  : Compliance can be defined as a new branch of law that mobilises major economic players and their stakeholders to ensure that the large systems in which we live do not collapse, but remain solid and sustainable. Sanctions, contracts, ethical principles, court decisions and corporate cultures all converge to achieve this. The ambition is great, some contest it, many want to escape it. It is still difficult to define compliance, which seems to be going in all directions. Who? What? Why? How? These are all questions addressed by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, professor of law and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC), together with the contributors to the collective works in the Régulations & Compliance series under her scientific direction. Compliance (JoRC), together with the contributors to the collective works in the "Regulations & Compliance" collection under her scientific direction, sheds light on with her imaginative power combined with her legal precision. - Q.Why do the fundamental objectives of compliance unify all legal compliance techniques? Summary of MAFR's response: because all these regulatory frameworks, which large companies are required to enforce effectively and which appear disparate, creating as many specific requirements as there are regulatory compliance blocks, find their unity when we consider the following reality: whatever the body of regulations in question (Sapin 2, Vigilance, Nis2, Dora, IAA, etc.), the aim is always to identify and prevent systemic risks so that these systems do not collapse.   Q. How can we define the obligation of compliance? Summary of MAFR response: the company concerned is therefore obliged to put in place "compliance structures", such as mapping, plans, alert structures and programmes (obligation of result), but of course, and this is the key point, to achieve this goal, namely to ensure that the system in question (banking, financial, climate, digital, algorithmic, etc.) does not collapse. This is an obligation of means. This is the exact, simple definition that unifies all the regulations of the Compliance Obligation for which subject companies are responsible.   Q. What conflicts arise around the source of compliance standards and their implementation?  Summary of MAFR's response: It must remain a matter of law. However, many argue that because it is only a matter of "compliance" and "ticking all the boxes", algorithms (which do not think or know anything) will do this, eliminating the need for lawyers and the law. This must be avoided. Furthermore, given the immense ambition of safeguarding systems, political and public authorities, businesses and stakeholders must join forces. They must not fight to bring each other down.   Q. What are the complexities of compliance law?  Summary of MAFR's response: I would not say "complexity", because although the regulations are complicated, compliance law is fairly simple and unified around its monumental goals of safeguarding systems, ensuring their future sustainability and protecting the people involved in them. However, it is a new branch of law that is still poorly understood and therefore sometimes poorly mastered. It therefore needs to be organised.   Q. What is your proposal for ordering it?  Summary of MAFR's response: Teaching more about compliance law will facilitate its organisation. The courts, to which all regulations converge through litigation, will participate in this organisation, which is necessary to ensure that regulations do not remain in silos and do not contradict each other when they have the same purpose, which constitutes their legal normativity. This new branch of law must also be articulated with all other branches of law. This is notably what the recently published book, L'obligation de compliance (The Obligation of Compliance), does. - 🌐Follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐Subscribe to the video newsletter MAFR Overhang 🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Law & Art

Articles

article published in the MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation Newsletter

Preuve est donnée, il n’y a pas de “compliance globale” : il faut donc continuer à construire une Compliance Européenne

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, ""Juge modeste" ou "check and balance" :alternative aux Etats-Unis, alternative en France" ("modest judge" or "check and balance": alternative in the United States, alternative in France), Newsletter MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation, 21 October 2025.. - 📧Read by free subscription other news from the MAFR Newsletter – Law, Compliance, Regulation - ► Summary of this article: Recent, - 📧read below the article published the 6 October dans the Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation ⤵️ - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐subscribe to the Video Newsletter MAFR Surplomb 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Droit & Art

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article published in the MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation Newsletter

📝”juge modeste” ou “check and balance” : alternative aux Etats-Unis, alternative en France (“modest judge” or “check and balance”: alternative in the United States, alternative in France)

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, ""Juge modeste" ou "check and balance" :alternative aux Etats-Unis, alternative en France" ("modest judge" or "check and balance": alternative in the United States, alternative in France), Newsletter MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation, 6 October 2025.. - 📧Read by free subscription other news from the MAFR Newsletter – Law, Compliance, Regulation - ► Summary of this article: Recent, if not forthcoming, decisions by the US Supreme Court show that the American political system that was based on the unwritten principle of Check and Balance, requiring the Justices to constitute one Power facing the other two could be replaced by a political system based on the principle of a "modest Justice" enforcing decisions made by the Federal Executive. They would then have a new Constitution. In Western Europe and especially in France, it is possible that the letter of the Constitution, which states that judges are not an autonomous power vis-à-vis the other two powers, will be abandoned and that, in the name of an unwritten principle, the Rule of Law, its transformation into an autonomous Power facing the executive in its own right will be adopted. The path would be exactly the opposite. We would then have changed the Constitution. That's conceivable, and there are many arguments in favour of it. We have to say so. And draw all the consequences. - 📧read below the article published the 6 October dans the Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation ⤵️ - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐subscribe to the Video Newsletter MAFR Surplomb 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MaFR Droit & Art

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Interview in a newspaper

« La compliance est avant tout une affaire humaine » (Compliance is first and foremost a human issue)

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche,  « La compliance est avant tout une affaire humaine» (Compliance is first and foremost a human issue), interview conducted by Olivia Dufour for Actu-juridique, Lextenso, 23 January 2025.   - ► read the interview: 💬in French) - 🏛️🏛️🏛️🏛️this interview was organised following a number of official opening hearings of Parisian courts, in particular that of the Paris Judicial Court on 21 January 2025, at which the presidents of these courts explained the role now played by systemic litigation and compliance and/or vigilance law, in particular in the internal organisation of their courts. - ► presentation of this interview:  Q. (translated): At the start of the new session of the official opening hearings of Paris Court of First Instance on 21 January, President Stéphane Noël spoke at length about the creation of a 34th chamber dedicated to handling cases relating to companies' obligation of vigilance. What are the advantages of this new specialisation? MAFR Answer Summary: It corresponds to the jurisdiction given to the Paris Court of First Instance by the French 2020 so-called Confidence Act, which extends the French 2017 so-called Vigilance Act. It reflects the importance of Compliance Law, of which Vigilance is the leading edge.   Q. (translated): The court president points out that this new litigation raises questions about the role of the courts, which is to "concilier le respect des buts fondamentaux pour la protection de l’humanité avec la possibilité pour les entreprises d’apprécier la maitrise des risques et leur éventuelle responsabilité" ("reconcile respect for the monumental goals of protecting humanity with the ability of companies to assess the control of risks and their potential liability"). What do you think?   MAFR Answer Summary: the role of the judge has been renewed, as they take charge of the future of the systems and participates in the achievement of the Monumental Goals of Compliance Law. Companies are subject by law to a new compliance obligation and must demonstrate their diligence. They may be held liable under the general ordinary legal regime, as set out in the French 2017 Act on Vigilance duty, if the claimant demonstrates the existence of fault or negligence, damage and a causal link between the 2.   Q. (translated): All this comes under the heading of compliance, a concept you've been working on for 10 years and which is still not fully understood and is too often confused with conformity….   MAFR Answer Summary: The 2 aforementioned concepts ("conformity" and "compliance") were identified in the article I published in 2016 entitled Le droit de la compliance"Compliance law". This notion has taken a long time to mature because, on the one hand, it is a radically new branch of law that has an impact on the other branches. On the other hand, indeed,  there is confusion between 'compliance' and 'conformity'. Conformity is the obedience to applicable regulations; compliance is the active participation in the achievement of monumental goals to preserve or save systems in which humans are involved. Conformity is, and is only, a tool of Compliance Law.   Q. (translated):  The Nanterre Court has just created a chamber for Emerging Systemic and Regulatory Litigation. Does this confirm the interest of the courts in this fundamental development?   MAFR Answer Summary: This statement by the President of the Nanterre Court of Appeal at his hearing on 20 January 2025 illustrates the Regulation – Compliance – Vigilance continuum. He involves training for judges and dialogue between judges. Training and dialogue are being put in place.   Q. (translated):  Y a-t-il d’autres initiatives en ce sens ? MAFR Answer Summary:Le président du Tribunal de commerce Paris à son audience du 15 janvier 2025 a annoncé la création d'une chambre des contentieux complexe. Les contentieux systémiques émergents, que le Droit de la Compliance peut engendrer, ont vocation à y être présentés. Là  aussi, formation et dialogue se mettent en place.   Q. (translated):  Que manque-t-il encore ? MAFR Answer Summary: puisque le Droit de la compliance se contractualise de plus en plus, notamment dans les chaines de valeur concernées par les techniques de vigilance, l'arbitrage international est concerné. Des arbitres internationaux intégrant le droit de la compliance, et pas seulement attaché à telle et telle réglementation sectorielle, sont un enjeu d'attractivité de la Place de Paris. Cela va émerger, notamment par le dynamisme de la Cour internationale d'arbitrage, dont le siège est à Paris. - 🌐suivre Marie-Anne Frison-Roche sur LinkedIn 🌐suivre Marie-Anne Frison-Roche sur Instagram 🌐s'abonner à la Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐s'abonner à la Newsletter en vidéo MAFR Surplomb

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📝Antitrust, natural field of Systemic Litigation

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Antitrust, natural field of Systemic Litigation", Concurrences, November 2024, No. 4, Art. No. 120776. - 📝read the article (in English) - 🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks - ► English Summary of this article: Systemic Litigation is a specific category of Litigation in which beyond the dispute between the parties the interest of a System is involved, in particular its future. Competition Law is a natural and long-standing field for this category, which is now emerging strongly for information, climate and energy systems.  It should be remembered that a market is not self-regulating and cannot continue to function in the long term unless it has the benefit of a judge, a figure who is specific in that he/she is both external to it and yet apprehends its specific interest. In order to satisfy this double requirement, liberal legal organisations often entrust the competition authority with jurisdiction over this Systemic Litigation. Ordinary courts will also hear such cases, either on appeal or in other proceedings, and it cannot be claimed that courts are excluded, the systemic dimension of the dispute being expressed by the presence of the competition authority in the proceedings. This explains the procedural rules that are hard to justify otherwise. The Authority, the European Commission for example, must be able to develop and express the specific interests of the competition system. This special role of the competition authority in this type of litigation, because it is systemic, has been in place for decades and should serve as a model for Systemic Litigation, which is being developed for other systems whose sustainability is now referred to the courts. - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter Surplomb, par MAFR