Food for thoughts

Cette bibliographie indicative vise des :

• ouvrages généraux

 

• ouvrages abordant la Régulation et la Compliance bancaire et financière à l'occasion d'un autre sujet principalement traité

 

• sites pertinents pour l'étude du Droit de la Régulation bancaire et financière

 

• ouvrages et articles portant spécifiquement sur la Régulation et la Compliance bancaire et financière

 

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

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

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

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

Network industries are built on transport infrastructure such as telecommunications waves or data, gas or electricity, which are essential facilities.

These essential infrastructures are monitored by regulators not only for the operators to have a concrete right of access but also for a complete network of these infrastructures to be built in a space, especially in Europe, for example to achieve a European railway system.

These infrastructures also exist in banking, financial and insurance matters, which it would be futile to oppose too easily to Network industries, as financial centers are based on huge computer systems, internalized clearing houses, which are themselves Infrastructure, deserving Regulation.

In this way, the optimal infrastructure solidity, the Regulator having its final responsibility in a permanent control over the manager, whether the State or an operator - whether the operator is an operator Public or a private operator -, and the competitive dynamism of the sector that the system can also entrust to the same regulator.

This is particularly the case in Financial Regulation, which aims to optimize the places, which compete with each other, and their respective security, which itself constitutes a competitive advantage, common to all operators.

The insurance sector has always been regulated in that it presents a very high systemic risk, since the economic operators' strength is required for the operation of the sector and the bankruptcy of one of them may weaken or even collapse all. In addition, insurance is the sector in which moral hazard is the highest, since the insured will tend to minimize the risks to which he is exposed in order to pay the lowest premium possible, even though ehe company is engaged to cover an accident whose size can not be measured in advance. Thus, the science of insurance is above all that of probabilities.

The recent challenge of regulating insurance, both institutional, the construction and the powers of the regulator of the sector, and also functional, namely the relations that it must have with the other bodies and institutions, lies mainly in the relationship between the insurance regulator and the bank regulator, which refers to the concept of "interregulation." If the formal criteria are followed, the two sectors are distinct and the regulators must be similarly separated. There was the case in France before 2010. En 2010, considering activities, sensitive to the fact that insurance products, for example life insurance contracts, are mostly financial products, and moreover, through the notion of "bank-insurance", the same companies engage in both economic activities, the solution of an unique body has been chosen.

A part from the fact that in Competition Law companies are defined by market activity, the main consideration is that the risk of contamination and spread is common between insurance sector and banking sector. For this reason, the French  Ordinance of 21 January 2010 created the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel -ACP (French Prudential Supervisory Authority), which covers both insurance companies and banks, since their soundness must be subject to similar requirements and to an organization common. The law of July 2013 entrusted this Authority with the task of organizing the restructuring of these enterprises, thus becoming the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution - ACPR  (French Prudential Control and Resolution Authority).

However, the substantive rules are not unified, on the one hand because the insurers are not in favor of such assimilation with banks, secondly because the texts, essentially the European Directive on the insolvency of insurance companies ("Solvency II") , eemain specific to them, and at a distance from the Basel rules applying to banks, which contradict the institutional rapprochement exposed before. European construction reflects the specificity of the insurance sector, the Regulation of 23 November 2010 establishing EIOPA, which is a European quasi-regulator for pension funds, including insurance companies.

The current issue of insurance regulatory system is precisely the European construction. While the Banking Union, the Europe of banking regulation, is being built, the Europe of Insurance Regulation is not being built. Already because, rightly, it does not want to merge into the banking Europe, negotiations of the texts of "Solvency II" stumbling on this question of principle. We find this first truth: in practice, it is the definitions that count. Here: Can an insurance company define itself as a bank like any other?

L'enjeu actuel de la Régulation assurantielle est précisément la construction européenne. Tandis que par l’Union bancaire, l’Europe de la régulation bancaire se construit, l’Europe de la Régulation assurantielle ne se construit. Déjà parce que, à juste titre, elle ne veut pas se fondre dans l’Europe bancaire, les négociations des textes de « Solvabilité II » achoppant sur cette question de principe. L’on retrouve cette vérité première : en pratique, ce sont les définitions qui compte. Ici : une compagnie d’assurance peut-elle se définir comme une banque comme une autre ?

 

► 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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►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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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.

► Full Reference: V. Magnier, "The transformation of governance and due diligence", 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 develops the tensions caused by Compliance Law and the Duty of Vigilance on corporate governance.

The French "Sapin 2" law targets corruption, while the French "Vigilance" law has a broader scope in terms of risks and the entire value chain. It is logical that this should create tensions in terms of governance, given the monumental goals involved. Companies need to take ownership of the powers delegated to them, which means rethinking their governance and the way in which they exercise their corporate mandates, with the corporate interest, the judge's compass, having to be combined with the adoption of new standards of behaviour formalised voluntarily by ethical charters in line with international standards. On this voluntary and supervised basis, the company must adapt its structure and then contractualise these norms.

This ethical approach has an impact on the role of corporate organs, not only in terms of transparency and risk prioritisation, but also proactively in terms of the adoption of commitments whose sincerity will be verified, as reflected, for example, in corporate governance codes (cf.in France the AFEP-MEDEF Code), the setting up of ad hoc committees and the presence of stakeholders, who will be consulted when the vigilance plan is drawn up.

She stresses that this creates tensions, that dialogue is difficult, that business secrecy must be preserved, but that stakeholders must become Vigilance watchdogs, a role that should not be left to the public authorities alone.

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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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► Référence complète : L. d'Avout,  La cohérence mondiale du droit, Cours général de droit international privé, Académie de droit international de La Haye, t.443, 2025, 692 p.

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🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn

🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance and Contract, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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

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

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► General presentation of the book: 

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

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

• further books:

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

• previous books:

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Obligation, 2024

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, 2024

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Monumental Goals, 2023

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

 

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

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🏗️General construction of the book:

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► Référence complète : C. Barreau, "L’éducation à la concurrence des monopoleurs publics par la sanction des abus « d’infrastructures essentielles » ", in O. Serra (dir.), Des restrictions de concurrence à la libéralisation des marchés, Presses Universitaires de Toulouse Capitole, 2025, pp.379-403.

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► Lire l'article

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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).

La présomption est une dispense de preuve lorsqu'elle est établie par la loi. Elle est un raisonnement probatoire lorsqu'elle est présentée devant un juge, raisonnement qui permet d'établir un fait pertinent à partir d'une preuve indirecte. Il constitue en cela un déplacement d'objet de preuve.

On distingue les présomptions légales, lorsque c'est le législateur qui a posé comme établi un fait, ce qui engendre alors non plus un déplacement d'objet de preuve, mais une dispense de preuve pour celui qui doit supporter normalement la charge de preuve.

Lorsque l'adversaire à l'allégation n'est pas autorisé à rapporter la preuve contraire à l'allégation, la présomption est irréfragable. Parce que la présomption irréfragable est une dispense définitive de preuve, elle soustrait la réalité d'un fait à l'obligation d'être prouvé. La présomption équivaut alors à une fiction. Parce qu'il s'agit d'un artefact, on affirme généralement que seul le législateur a le droit de poser des présomptions irréfragables. Ainsi, la présomption de vérité qui s'attache à la chose définitivement jugée est une présomption légale irréfragable. Celle-ci est alors une pure règle de fond, ici l'incontestabilité des décisions de justice contre lesquelles il n'existe plus de voies de recours d'annulation disponible.

A côté des présomptions légales, existent les "présomptions du fait de l'homme", expression traditionnelle pour désigner les raisonnements probatoires précités que les parties présentent au juge. Comme il s'agit de preuves véritables, ayant donc pour objet de reconstituer la vérité, elles ne peuvent pas être irréfragables, et ne peuvent entraîner qu'une alternance des charges de preuve, au détriment du défendeur à l'allégation. La présomption du fait de l'homme est toujours simple.

Si la jurisprudence établit pourtant des présomptions qu'elle pose comme incontestables, cela signifie simplement qu'elle a établie comme une règle de fond, comme la responsabilité des parents du fait des enfants, antérieurement une responsabilité pour faute présumée aujourd'hui une responsabilité aujourd'hui. Cela n'est que l'expression de la jurisprudence source de droit, c'est-à-dire de la jurisprudence au même niveau que le législateur.

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Exemple concret

Une personne, A,  est retrouvée blessée sur la chaussée. Elle prétend que l'auteur du dommage est le propriétaire d'un vélo qui a freiné brutalement et l'a renversée avant de prendre la fuite. Il n'y a pas de témoin. Elle soutient qu'il s'agit de son voisin, B, dont le vélo, est endommagé. Elle démontre qu'il existe sur le bitume des traces de peinture et de pneus, qui correspondent aux entailles du vélo de B., observation faite qu'il a changé ses pneus le lendemain même de l'accident.

A soutient le raisonnement suivant au juge : je dois démontrer que B m'a renversée (objet direct de preuve), ce que je ne peux faire directement. Mais je peux prouver que son vélo est endommagé, qu'il a changé les pneus, que les entailles du vélo correspondent aux traces relevées sur le sol où a eu lieu l'accident, que B a changé ses pneus le lendemain même de l'accident : on peut, par ces preuves indirectes, présume un lien de causalité. Ainsi, la preuve est apportée non directement, mais par raisonnement.

Si le juge admet le raisonnement, comme la présomption n'est pas irréfragable, la question probatoire ne sera pas réglée, il opérera simplement un renversement de charge de preuve. B, défendeur à l'allégation, sera recevable à démontrer que ces éléments, le changement des pneus, l'endommagement de l'ossature du vélo, ont d'autre chose. S'il apporte ces preuves, alors il aura brisé la présomption simple, et le demandeur, qui supporte le risque de preuve, aura perdu le procès. S'il ne les apporte pas, alors le demandeur, grâce à la présomption, aura gagné son procès.

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► Référence complète : B. Lecourt, "Des obligations d'information en matière de droit de l'homme et d'environnement au devoir de vigilance", in B. Lecourt (dir.) Lebvre - Dalloz, coll. "Thèmes et commentaires", 2025, pp

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📗lire une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le devoir européen de vigilance, dans lequel cet article est publié

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Will, Heart and Calculation, the three marks surrounding the Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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📝read the article

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🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks

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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): There is often a dispute over the pertinent definition of Compliance Law, but the scale and force of the resulting obligation for the companies subject to it is clear.  It remains difficult to define. First, we must not to be overwhelmed by the many obligations through which the Compliance Obligation takes shape, such as the obligation to map, to investigate, to be vigilant, to sanction, to educate, to collaborate, and so on. Not only this obligations list is very long, it is also open-ended, with companies themselves and judges adding to it as and when companies, sectors and cases require. 

Nor should we be led astray by the distance that can be drawn between the contours of this Compliance Obligation, which can be as much a matter of will, a generous feeling for a close or distant other in space or time, or the result of a calculation. This plurality does not pose a problem if we do not concentrate all our efforts on distinguishing these secondary obligations from one another but on measuring what they are the implementation of, this Compliance Obligation which ensures that entities, companies, stakeholders and public authorities, contribute to achieving the Goals targeted by Compliance Law, Monumental Goals which give unity to the Compliance Obligation.  Thus unified by the same spirit, the implementation of all these secondary obligations, which seem at once disparate, innumerable and often mechanical, find unity in their regime and the way in which Regulators and Judges must control, sanction and extend them, since the Compliance Obligation breathes a common spirit into them.

 In the same way that the multiplicity of compliance techniques must not mask the uniqueness of the Compliance Obligation, the multiplicity of sources must not produce a similar screen. Indeed, the Legislator has often issued a prescription, an order with which companies must comply, Compliance then often being perceived as required obedience. But the company itself expresses a will that is autonomous from that of the Legislator, the vocabulary of self-regulation and/or ethics being used in this perspective, because it affirms that it devotes forces to taking into consideration the situation of others when it would not be compelled to do so, but that it does so nonetheless because it cares about them. However, the management of reputational risks and the value of bonds of trust, or a suspicious reading of managerial choices, lead us to say that all this is merely a calculation.

Thus, the first part of the contribution sets out to identify the Compliance Obligation by recognising the role of all these different sources. The second part emphasises that, in monitoring the proper performance of technical compliance obligations by Managers, Regulators and Judges, insofar as they implement the Compliance Obligation, it is pointless to limit oneself to a single source or to rank them abruptly in order of importance. The Compliance Obligation is part of the very definition of Compliance Law, built on the political ambition to achieve these Monumental Goals of preserving systems - banking, financial, energy, digital, etc. - in the future, so that human beings who cannot but depend on them are not crushed by them, or even benefit from them. This is the teleological yardstick by which the Compliance Obligation is measured, and with it all the secondary obligations that give it concrete form, whatever their source and whatever the reason why the initial standard was adopted.

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Scientific coprdination and co-hosting of the colloquia series Compliance and Contract, organised on the initiative of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its academic partners

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► The Symposium Series in a nutshell : As a direct continuation of the previous symposium series co-organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance and its partner universities on "Compliance Obligation", which served as the basis for the publication of the book 📘Compliance Obligation,  The series, some elements of which began in 2024 and others are already present in this book, explored in depth the specific theme of the links between compliance law and contracts. Indeed, compliance law is often analysed as the construction of laws and regulations to achieve "📘 Monumental Goals " of a political nature desired by States and public authorities, to the achievement of which systemic economic operations contribute through 📘Compliance Tools that are now well documented. Contracts are still relatively little studied, or even developed, in compliance systems that are often perceived through the orders issued, the technologies put in place and the 📘sanctions to be avoided or endured. On the contrary, the future of compliance law, particularly in its European conception, which places human beings at the centre of concerns for the sustainability of systems and the use of contracts, is the new conception that we must adopt. Contracts then appear to be both the means by which the subject company fulfils its legal obligations, forges relationships with other actors and deploys the necessary innovations. Contract law is both used and renewed as a result. The series of symposiums will examine various aspects of this general issue. It will result in the publication of a 📘book Compliance and Contrat.

► Presentation of symposiums in development : 

• 29 May 2026🧮THE JUDGE CONFRONTED WITH CONTRACTS OF COMPLIANCE AND COMPLIANCE CLAUSES: read the presentation

 

• 12 June 2026🧮THE "CONTRACT OF COMPLIANCE" : read the presentation

 

• 25  Septembre 2026🧮COMPLIANCE: CLAUSE BY CLAUSE: read the presentation

 

• October 2026🧮COMPLIANCE AND COMMON CONTRACT LAW : read the presentation

 

• September 2026🧮COMPLIANCE, VALUE CHAINS AND CONTRACT: read the presentation

 

• 2 November 2026 🧮COMPLIANCE AND THE STRATEGIC CONTRACTUAL ORGANISATION OF CHAINS VALUE BY ENTERPRISES: read the presentation 

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► Référence complète : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Mission confiée par le garde des Sceaux, Droit de la compliance et attractivité juridique , 2025-2026.

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📜lire la lettre de mission du garde des Sceaux du 5 septembre 2025 saisissant Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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► Présentation méthodologique de la menée de cette mission : À

► Référence complète : M. M. Mohamed Salah, "Conclusions", in J. Andriantsimbazovina (dir.), Puissances privées et droits de l'Homme. Essai d'analyse juridique, Mare Martin, coll. "Horizons européens", 2024, pp. 297-314

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► Résumé de l'article :

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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The market is normally self-regulated. It suffers from one-time failures when economic agents engage in anti-competitive behavior, mainly the abuse of dominant positions in the ordinary markets, or the abuse of markets in the financial markets, sanctioned ex post by the authorities in individual decisions.

But some sectors suffer from structural failures, which prevent them, even without malicious intent of agents, from reaching this mechanism of adjustment of supply and demand. The existence of an economically natural monopoly, for example a transport network, constitutes a structural failure. Another agent will not duplicate once the first network has been built, which prevents competition. An a-competitive regulation, either by nationalization, by a state control or by a control by a regulatory authority, is needed to ensure everyone's access to an essential facility. Also constitutes a market failure asymmetry of information, theorized through the notion of agency that hinders the availability and circulation of exhaustive and reliable information on markets, especially financial markets. This market failure carries with it a systemic risk, against which regulation is definitely built and entrusted to financial regulators and central banks.

In these cases, the implementation of regulations is a reaction of the State not so much by political rejection of the Market, but because the competitive economy is unfit to function. This has nothing to do with the hypothesis that the State is distancing itself from the Market, not because it is structurally flawed in relation to its own model, but because politics wants to impose higher values, expressed By the public service, whose market does not always satisfy the missions.

 

 

Référence complète : Y. Quintin, Aux frontières du droit : les embargos américains et l'affaire BNP Paribas, RD banc. fin., étude 21, 2014.

► Full Reference: J.-S. Borghetti, "The Relation between Tort Law and Compliance Obligation", 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 points out that in order to establish civil liability, it is first necessary to find fault, i.e. a deviation from an obligation, which will trigger a secondary obligation, that of reparation. But it can also be argued that it is from liability that this primary obligation arises, civil liability then revealing an obligation which existed only implicitly. That establishes a two-way relationship between liability and obligation. The Compliance Obligation illustrates this, in particular through the Obligation of Vigilance conceived by the French law of 2017.

The author therefore devotes the first part of his contribution to civil liability as a result of an Compliance Obligation, especially the Obligation of Vigilance. issued of the French law of 2017. After discussing whether the constraints generated by compliance should be classified as 'obligations', since there is no creditor, which therefore opens the way to liability in tort, he examines the conditions for incurring such liability, which are difficult, particularly with regard to the burden of proof and the demonstration of the causal link. The requirement concerning the latter may evolve in French law towards the admission of proportional causality, as is now accepted in certain cases in German case law.

In the second part of his contribution, the author deals with the hypothesis of civil liability as an indicator of a Compliance Obligation. He points out that the claims made, particularly in the cases of TotalOuganda (France) and Milieudefensie v. Shell (Netherlands) seek to obtain from the judge a such "revelation".

The author considers that it is not possible to draw from the  French 2017 law which refers to article 1240 of the French Civil Code on the liability because this article is referred to only in order to organise the consequences of a breach of article L.225-102-4 of the French Commercial Code organising the Obligation of Vigilance (article 1240 being therefore under the secondary obligation described above) and not to feed what this article L.225-102-4 requires under the primary obligation (defined above). 

On the other hand, the Shell judgment derives directly from civil liability an obligation to act. This is understandable if one takes the perspective and the measure of the future challenges posed, in this case in the area of climate change. But the author considers that it is up to the legislator to decide on such a development in Liability Law. 

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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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"Liberalization" refers to the process of the legal end of a monopolistic organization of an economy, a sector or a market, in order to open it up to Competition.

Since it is rare for an economy to be entirely monopolistic (which presupposes an extreme concentration of political power), the phenomenon is more particularly characteristic of public sectors. Liberalization, if it is translated into Law only by a declaration of openness to Competition, is actually achieved only by a much slower implementation of the latter, since the incumbent operators have the power to check the entry of potential new entrants. This is why the process of liberalization is only effective if strong regulatory authorities are established to open up the market, weakening incumbent operators where necessary and offering benefits to new entrants through asymmetric regulation .

This Regulation aims to build Competition, now permitted by law.

This is why, in a process of Liberalization, Regulation aims to concretizeCcompetition by constructing it. This transitional regulation is intended to be withdrawn and the institutions set up to disappear, for example by becoming merely specialized chambers of the General Competition Authority, Regulation being temporary when linked to liberalization.

It is distinct from the Regulation of essential infrastructures which, as natural monopolies, must be definitively regulated. Quite often, in liberal economies, the State has asked public enterprises to manage such monopolies, particularly in the network industries, to which it has also entrusted the economic activity of the entire sector. By the liberalization phenomenon, most States have opted to retain the management of infrastructure for this operator, now an incumbent operator competing on the competing activities offered to consumers. In this respect, the Regulator forces it in two ways: in a transitional way to establish competition for the benefit of new entrants, in a definitive way insofar as it has been chosen by the State to manage the economic monopoly of infrastructure.

Even in the only relationship between competitors, Regulation has difficulty to retreat, and this often due to the Regulator. Max Weber's sociological rules  administration show about administration that the regulatory authorities, even in view of the purpose of competitive development, for example in the field of telecommunications, seek to remain, even though competition has actually been built. It does it by finding new purposes (in the above sector, the regulator could be the guardian of Net Neutralityt) or by affirming to practice a permanent "symmetric Regulation".

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.

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.