Food for thoughts

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).

► 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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► Full Reference: L. d'Avout, "Compliance and conflict of laws. International Law of Vigilance-Conformity, based on recent applications in Europe", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance 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 Author, translated by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): In the absence of constraints derived from the real international law, vigilance-compliance laws themselves determine their scope of application in space. They do so generously, to the extent that they often converge on the same operators and 'overlap' on the world stage. The result is a hybridation of the law applicable to the definition of Compliance Obligations; a law possibly written "with four hands" or more, which is not always harmonious and which exposes unilateral legislators to occasional retouching their work and their applied regulations.

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

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► Full Reference: J.-Ph. Denis & N. Fabbe-Costes, "Legal Constraints and company Compliance Strategies", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

____

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

____

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

____

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

________

► Full Reference: E. Maclouf, "Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

____

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

____

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

Summary of this article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : This article looks at the topic Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation from the perspective of Management Science and sets out to resolve the paradox of industrial organisations expressing the ambition of progress for the benefit of people, a humanist ambition that is contradicted by the effects produced by this industrialisation itself, which are harmful to that same humanity. The Compliance Obligation, insofar as it is based on the Monumental Goals and is anchored in Industrial Organisations, aims to resolve this paradox.

The science of human organisations aims to allocate nature's scarce resources as efficiently as possible by getting individuals to cooperate, this engineering producing natural, industrial and social disasters, which are themselves more or less anticipated. The Compliance Obligation holds out the hope of better preventing them (Negative Monumental Goal) and managing them, or even improving people's lives (Positive Monumental Goal) by going beyond traditional disciplines and developing Ex Ante. However, Industrial Organisations may also reject the weight of the constraints that this creates for them, calling for deregulation instead. The debate is currently open.

Furthermore, by moving from the mechanical logic of conformity to the dynamic logic of the Compliance Obligation, companies find themselves in a situation of systemic uncertainty and must decide on the strategy to be implemented, resulting in a managerialisation of the Law  and implying many new decisions to be taken. The notion of "project" is therefore back at the heart of Industrial Organisations, and more specifically that of "Humanist Project", as embodied by the Compliance Obligation, in a new Organisation where everyone plays their part in the Value Chain.

The author draws on the work of Raymond Aron and the Rueff-Armand report to show that the dynamism and strength of Industrial Organisation can support a Humanist Project that is politically developed and fits in with the Economic Rationality of Industrial Organisations. This is all the more necessary as this Regulatory Framework cannot come from the sum of individual actions alone (employees, consumers, investors), as the interests of the company, of the sector, of society, of nature cannot be served by this addition alone, and the claim that the whole is self-regulated by the expression of a single one of these players (who are themselves both inside and outside the industrial organisation) is unsustainable.

The Author shows that new entities are therefore being created to regulate Industrial Entities in the public interest through the Compliance Obligation, which inserts an Obligation into the Industrial Organisation modifying its project: the French so-called "Sapin 2" law is a perfect example of this, encouraging appropriate strategic responses from Industrial Organisations, which have modified their managerial procedures to integrate new strategic projects and involve stakeholders.

Finally, because the Compliance Obligation is anchored in Monumental Goals, it can be the basis of the Company's Project and the Players' Project of the players, which leads us to return to the basis of the Organisations Theory, which entrusts to the corporate bodies the power and the mission of defining such a project through corporate deliberations which will then be, in the aforementioned approach of Industrial Rationality, broken down into Objectives and Plans. This is a reminder that Profit is not a Company's Goal: it is the sine qua non of its survival, which is different. A Rational Organisation determines its Project and for ensuring it,  to achieve it, it must not run the risk of going bankrupt. The Compliance Obligation is developing  between this difference and the link between the Project and this necessity to have some profit which is just a Condition. Furthermore, in order to establish this project, the organisation must resolve oppositions (conflictuality) through the complex interplay of players (Jean-Pierre Dupuy).

Industrial organisations must respond to the Compliance Obligation. In particular, they do this by developing norms, or by contributing to the development of public norms, and by themselves expressly aiming Goals such as the fight against suffering in the workplace or equality between men and women as falling within the scope of the Compliance Obligation. This framing work is an essential part of the organisation's strategy, and environmental concerns can thus be integrated to a greater or lesser extent into this or that perspective. All this goes beyond the mere logic of conformity.

The Compliance Obligation thus enables the production of what the Author calls "adaptive responses by individuals in the face of Systemic Crises and their causes", countering the Anomie which is also a monumental problem in today's society, which has lost its bearings and is suffering from Uncertainty. This Compliance Obligation enables Industrial Entities to integrate into Society, if necessary by coercion, by becoming the vectors of human rights and social and environmental expectations. But the success of this Compliance Obligation presupposes a certain appropriation of the Goals by the scales companies, which taints the Compliance Obligation itself with Uncertainty.

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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: 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

____

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

____

► 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: L. Rapp, "Compliance, Chaines de valeur et Économie servicielle",  ", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2024, forthcoming

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

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► English summary of this contribution  (done par its author) :  Based on an analysis of the value chains of companies in the space sector and their recent evolution, this contribution examine the role, place and current transformations of compliance policies and strategies in the context of an industrial transformation that has become essential: the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy.

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

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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.

► Full Reference: R. Sève, "L'Obligation de Compliance et les mutations de la souveraineté et de la citoyenneté" ("Compliance Obligation and changes in Sovereignty and Citizenship"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2024, forthcoming.

 

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

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► English Summary of this article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : The contribution describes "les changements de philosophie du droit que la notion de compliance peut impliquer par rapport à la représentation moderne de l’Etat assurant l’effectivité des lois issues de la volonté générale, dans le respect des libertés fondamentales qui constituent l’essence du sujet de droit." ("the changes in legal philosophy that the notion of Compliance may imply in relation to the modern representation of the State ensuring the effectiveness of laws resulting from the general will, while respecting the fundamental freedoms that constitute the essence of the subject of law").

The contributor believes that the definition of Compliance is due to authors who « jouer un rôle d’éclairage et de structuration d’un vaste ensemble d’idées et de phénomènes précédemment envisagés de manière disjointe.  Pour ce qui nous occupe, c’est sûrement le cas de la théorie de la compliance, développée en France par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche dans la lignée de grands économistes (Jean-Jacques Laffont, Jean Tirole) et dont la première forme résidait dans les travaux bien connus de la Professeure sur le droit de la régulation. » ( "play a role in illuminating and structuring a vast set of ideas and phenomena previously considered in a disjointed manner.  For our purposes, this is certainly the case with the theory of Compliance, developed in France by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche in the tradition of great economists (Jean-Jacques Laffont, Jean Tirole) and whose first form was in her well-known work on Regulatory Law").

Drawing on the Principles of the Law of the American Law Institute, which considers compliance to be a "set of rules, principles, controls, authorities, offices and practices designed to ensure that an organisation conforms to external and internal norms", he stresses that Compliance thus appears to be a neutral mechanism aimed at efficiency through a move towards Ex Ante. But he stresses that the novelty lies in the fact that it is aimed 'only' at future events, by 'refounding' and 'monumentalising' the matter through the notion of 'monumental goals' conceived by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, giving rise to a new jus comune. Thus, "la compliance c’est l’idée permanente du droit appliquée à de nouveaux contextes et défis." ("Compliance is the permanent idea of Law applied to new contexts and challenges"). 

So it's not a question of making budget savings, but rather of continuing to apply the philosophy of the Social Contract to complex issues, particularly environmental issues. 

This renews the place occupied by the Citizen, who appears not only as an individual, as in the classical Greek concept and that of Rousseau, but also through entities such as NGOs, while large companies, because they alone have the means to pursue the Compliance Monumental Goals, would be like "super-citizens", something that the digital space is beginning to experience, at the risk of the individuals themselves disappearing as a result of "surveillance capitalism". But in the same way that thinking about the Social Contract is linked to thinking about capitalism, Compliance is part of a logical historical extension, without any fundamental break: "C’est le développement et la complexité du capitalisme qui forcent à introduire dans les entités privées des mécanismes procéduraux d’essence bureaucratique, pour discipliner les salariés, contenir les critiques internes et externes, soutenir les managers en place" ("It is the development and complexity of capitalism that forces us to introduce procedural mechanisms of a bureaucratic nature into private entities, in order to discipline employees, contain internal and external criticism, and support the managers in place") by forcing them to justify remuneration, benefits, and so on.

Furthermore, in the words of the author, "Avec les buts monumentaux, - la prise en compte des effets lointains, diffus, agrégés par delà les frontières, de l’intérêt des générations futures, de tous les êtres vivants - ,  on passe, pour ainsi dire, à une dimension industrielle de l’éthique, que seuls de vastes systèmes de traitement de l’information permettent d’envisager effectivement." ("With the Monumental Goals - taking into account the distant, diffuse effects, aggregated across borders, the interests of future generations, of all living beings - we move, so to speak, to an industrial dimension of ethics, which only vast information processing systems can effectively envisage").

This is how we can find a division between artificial intelligence and human beings in organisations, particularly companies, or in decision-making processes.

In the same way, individual freedom does not disappear with Compliance, because it is precisely one of its monumental goals to enable individuals to make choices in a complex environment, particularly in the digital space where the democratic system is now at stake, while technical mechanisms such as early warning will revive the right to civil disobedience, invalidating the complaint of "surveillance capitalism".

The author concludes that the stakes are so high that Compliance, which has already overcome the distinctions between Private and Public Law and between national and international law, must also overcome the distinction between Information and secrecy, particularly in view of cyber-risks, which requires the State to develop and implement non-public Compliance strategies to safeguard the future.

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► Full Reference: J.-B. Blanc, "La loi, source de l’Obligation de Compliance" ("The Law, source of the Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, to be published

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📕lire une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, L'Obligation de Compliance, dans lequel cet article est publié

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► Summary of this contribution  (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance) :

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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 : S. Manacorda, "La dynamique des programmes de conformité des entreprises : déclin ou transfiguration du droit pénal des affaires ?", in A. Supiot (dir.), L'entreprise dans un monde sans frontières. Perspectives économiques et juridiques, coll. "Les sens du droit", Dalloz, 2015, p. 191-208.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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► 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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► Full Reference: E. Maclouf, "Entités industrielles et Obligation de compliance" ("Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2025, to be published

____

📕read a general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published

____

► Summary of this article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : This article looks at the topic Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation from the perspective of Management Science and sets out to resolve the paradox of industrial organisations expressing the ambition of progress for the benefit of people, a humanist ambition that is contradicted by the effects produced by this industrialisation itself, which are harmful to that same humanity. The Compliance Obligation, insofar as it is based on the Monumental Goals and is anchored in Industrial Organisations, aims to resolve this paradox.

The science of human organisations aims to allocate nature's scarce resources as efficiently as possible by getting individuals to cooperate, this engineering producing natural, industrial and social disasters, which are themselves more or less anticipated. The Compliance Obligation holds out the hope of better preventing them (Negative Monumental Goal) and managing them, or even improving people's lives (Positive Monumental Goal) by going beyond traditional disciplines and developing Ex Ante. However, Industrial Organisations may also reject the weight of the constraints that this creates for them, calling for deregulation instead. The debate is currently open.

Furthermore, by moving from the mechanical logic of conformity to the dynamic logic of the Compliance Obligation, companies find themselves in a situation of systemic uncertainty and must decide on the strategy to be implemented, resulting in a managerialisation of the Law  and implying many new decisions to be taken. The notion of "project" is therefore back at the heart of Industrial Organisations, and more specifically that of "Humanist Project", as embodied by the Compliance Obligation, in a new Organisation where everyone plays their part in the Value Chain.

The author draws on the work of Raymond Aron and the Rueff-Armand report to show that the dynamism and strength of Industrial Organisation can support a Humanist Project that is politically developed and fits in with the Economic Rationality of Industrial Organisations. This is all the more necessary as this Regulatory Framework cannot come from the sum of individual actions alone (employees, consumers, investors), as the interests of the company, of the sector, of society, of nature cannot be served by this addition alone, and the claim that the whole is self-regulated by the expression of a single one of these players (who are themselves both inside and outside the industrial organisation) is unsustainable.

The Author shows that new entities are therefore being created to regulate Industrial Entities in the public interest through the Compliance Obligation, which inserts an Obligation into the Industrial Organisation modifying its project: the French so-called "Sapin 2" law is a perfect example of this, encouraging appropriate strategic responses from Industrial Organisations, which have modified their managerial procedures to integrate new strategic projects and involve stakeholders.

Finally, because the Compliance Obligation is anchored in Monumental Goals, it can be the basis of the Company's Project and the Players' Project of the players, which leads us to return to the basis of the Organisations Theory, which entrusts to the corporate bodies the power and the mission of defining such a project through corporate deliberations which will then be, in the aforementioned approach of Industrial Rationality, broken down into Objectives and Plans. This is a reminder that Profit is not a Company's Goal: it is the sine qua non of its survival, which is different. A Rational Organisation determines its Project and for ensuring it,  to achieve it, it must not run the risk of going bankrupt. The Compliance Obligation is developing  between this difference and the link between the Project and this necessity to have some profit which is just a Condition. Furthermore, in order to establish this project, the organisation must resolve oppositions (conflictuality) through the complex interplay of players (Jean-Pierre Dupuy).

Industrial organisations must respond to the Compliance Obligation. In particular, they do this by developing norms, or by contributing to the development of public norms, and by themselves expressly aiming Goals such as the fight against suffering in the workplace or equality between men and women as falling within the scope of the Compliance Obligation. This framing work is an essential part of the organisation's strategy, and environmental concerns can thus be integrated to a greater or lesser extent into this or that perspective. All this goes beyond the mere logic of conformity.

The Compliance Obligation thus enables the production of what the Author calls "adaptive responses by individuals in the face of Systemic Crises and their causes", countering the Anomie which is also a monumental problem in today's society, which has lost its bearings and is suffering from Uncertainty. This Compliance Obligation enables Industrial Entities to integrate into Society, if necessary by coercion, by becoming the vectors of human rights and social and environmental expectations. But the success of this Compliance Obligation presupposes a certain appropriation of the Goals by the scales companies, which taints the Compliance Obligation itself with Uncertainty.

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

________

► 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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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 : 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 : S. Mouton, "Dimensions constitutionnelles de l'Obligation de Compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2024

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📕lire une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, L'obligation de Compliance, dans lequel cet article est publié

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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.

 

 

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

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

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

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.

► Référence complète : Fr. Berrod, "Introduction au DMA : un esprit pionnier de la régulation des plateformes numériques", Dalloz IP/IT, 2023, pp. 266-271

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "Le Digital Markets Act (DMA) a été proposé en même temps que son jumeau le Digital Service Act et ils ont été négociés en parallèle et stabilisés par la présidence française de l'Union européenne. Il est applicable à partir du 2 mai 2023. Sa négociation fut menée de façon remarquablement rapide (moins de seize mois pour obtenir l'accord politique sur la proposition de la Commission du 15 déc. 2020), si l'on rappelle la difficulté de ces deux textes, tant technique que juridique. Le DMA vient modifier les directives (UE) 2019/1937 et (UE) 2020/1828. Le titre technique choisi reflète l'ambition de ce texte, consacré « aux marchés contestables et équitables dans le secteur numérique ». Nous retracerons dans cette contribution les principaux éléments de compréhension du DMA.".

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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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► Full Reference: L. Rapp, "Compliance, Value Chains and Service Economy", 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 author, translated by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): Based on an analysis of the value chains of companies in the space sector and their recent evolution, this contribution examine the role, place and current transformations of compliance policies and strategies in the context of an industrial transformation that has become essential: the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy.

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

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

 

Lire l'article. 

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Concevoir l'Obligation de Compliance : faire usage de sa position pour participer à la réalisation des Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance" ("Conceiving the Compliance Obligation: Using its Position to take part in achieving the Compliance Monumental Goals"), 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 article (in French)

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🚧read the bilingual Working Paper on the basis this contribution has been built, with  more developments, technical references and hyperlinks. 

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📕read a general presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this article is published 

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► English summary of this contribution: Rather than getting bogged down in definitional disputes, given that Compliance Law is itself a incipient branch of Law, the idea of this contribution is to take as a starting point the different regimes of so many different compliance obligations to which laws and regulations subject large companies: sometimes they must apply them to the letter and sometimes they are only penalised in the event of fault or negligence. This brings us back to the distinction between obligations of result and obligations of means.

Although it might be risky to transpose the expression and regime of contractual obligations to legal obligations, starting from this observation in the Compliance Evidentiary System of a plurality of obligations of means and of result, depending on whether we are dealing with this or that technical compliance obligation, we must first classify them. It would appear that this plurality does not constitute a definitive obstacle to the creation of a single definition of the Compliance Obligation. On the contrary, it makes it possible to clarify the situation, to trace the paths through what is so often described as a legal jumble, an unmanageable mass of regulations.

Indeed, insofar as the company obliged under Compliance Law participates in the achievement of the Monumental Goals on which this branch of Law is normatively based, a legal obligation which may be relayed by contract or even by ethics, it can only be an obligation of means, by virtue of this very teleological nature and the scale of the goals targeted, for example the happy outcome of the climate crisis which is beginning or the desired effective equality between human beings. This established principle leaves room for the fact that the behaviour required is marked out by processes put in place by structured tools, most often legally described, for example the establishment of a vigilance plan or regularly organised training courses (effectiveness), are obligations of result, while the positive effects produced by this plan or these training courses (efficacy) are obligations of means. This is even more the case when the aim is to transform the system as a whole, i.e. to ensure that the system is solidly based, that there is a culture of equality, and that everyone respects everyone else - all of which come under the heading of efficiency.

The Compliance Obligation thus appears unified because, gradually, and whatever the various compliance obligations in question, their intensity or their sector, its structural process prerequisites are first and foremost structures to be established which the Law, through the Judge in particular, will require to be put in place but will not require anything more, whereas striving towards the achievement of the aforementioned Monumental Goals will be an obligation of means, which may seem lighter, but corresponds to an immeasurable ambition, linked with these Goals. Moreover, because these structures (warning platforms, training, audits, contracts and clauses, etc.) only have meaning in order to produce effects and behaviour leading to changes converging towards the Monumental Goals, it is the obligations of means that are most important and not the obligations of result. The judge must also take this into account.

Finally, the Compliance Obligation, which therefore consists of this interweaving of multiple compliance obligations of result and means of using the Entreprise's position, ultimately aims at system efficiency, in Europe at system civilisation, for which companies must show not so much that they have followed the processes correctly (result) but that this has produced effects that converge with the Goals sought by the legislator (effects produced according to a credible trajectory). This is how a crucial economic operator, responsible Ex Ante, should organise itself and behave.

 

 

 

 

 

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