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🚧Taking into account the legal landscape in Africa to fulfil the Vigilance Obligation

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, "The Future of Compliance", series Compliance, Centre Perelman, Brussels, 23 February 2026.

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🧮view the full programme for the series Compliance (in French)

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► English presentation of this concluding conference in the series Compliance : The future of Compliance: who knows what it holds? Anyone who practises and studies the texts, litigation, structures and behaviours will have to admit that they do not know what will become of what has emerged as a new branch of law. It is not easily recognised, probably for three reasons. Firstly, because the birth of a new branch of law is an unusual phenomenon, whose disruptive and regenerative waves are felt in all branches of law and other regulatory systems, accompanying and reflecting the new world we have already entered, whether we like it or not. Secondly, because it is unpleasant (especially if you are a professor...) to begin and conclude with the fact that you do not know. Thirdly, because it is not very marketable, and in today's large and growing "compliance market", it is not very smart, if you want to sell compliance products (whether they be algorithms, new services to be linked to the highest level of companies, specialities in law firms, new chairs in various schools), to say that you don't know. So the experts say they know. For my part, I meet many people who are "experts" and who are "knowledgeable". What is surprising is the diversity of their discourse, which casts doubt on the solidity of the projection, particularly on the meaning of words: for example, not only words that could be described as "new" (which we then try to anchor in old words) such as "compliance/conformity" and "governance", but also words that we are undoubtedly more familiar with, such as "commitment" and "responsibility" or "sanction", i.e. the very pillars of the matter.

Why is this a cause for concern, apart from the fact that it is always better to know what we are talking about, rather than everyone talking in their own corner, for their own compliance corpus, for their like-minded friends, with the subject matter becoming increasingly siloed? Because the object of Compliance Law is the future. So, the future of this branch of law which its object is the future is by nature very uncertain.

It will therefore be assumed in advance that not knowing the future is a major difficulty when it comes to Compliance Law, in that this branch of law is unified in that it is ex ante and its object is the future. The difficulty is neither of the same nature nor of the same magnitude when it comes to the legislator, the "regulator", the regulated company (calculating or political), or the judge faced with systemic compliance litigation.

That said, in a first part, one can imagine the future possibilities for Compliance (because that is what it boils down to, given the number of candidates eager to seize the instruments of power that are the " Compliance tools"). It is not a foregone conclusion that this future will be governed by Law. The consequences could take care of that. Or the order given by the leader (Trump, for instance), and that would go down all the better as he states that he certainly does not care about human beings but that he wields the power of Compliance to restore the climate balance (through Chinese regulations): except to say that there is no unified Compliance Law. That there would be one for the climate and another for human rights. So what about the future consistency of European Law, which links the two in the CSRD and the CS3D? Particularly in value chains. The question then is: what will be the uniqueness of Compliance Law in the future?

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In a second part, since we do not know how things will turn out, from omnibus to omnibus, from a government hostile to the Law to a government appealing to the Due Process, from case law to case law, from special law to common law, we must weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the various perspectives. There is never one perspective where everything is good and another where everything is bad, because in that case there would be no choice and no policy: it would be enough to have information, to be "rational" and to go for the right solution rather than the wrong one. Beyond general statements that a combination of compliance and ethics is welcome, which is not in doubt in the superb statements made in this regard, it is necessary to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the direction we may take. Firstly, there is the disappearance of Compliance Law, with the advantage of reducing the regulatory burden on those subject to it and the disadvantage of abandoning altruistic and global ambitions (these two Monumental Goals may overlap). Secundly, it could involve the creation of a global empire, with the advantage of a simplified American empire, whether extraterritorialised by the state or by companies and their governance or technology, with the advantage of a Western model and the disadvantage of the crushing of "mondialisation" by globalisation and the disappearance of the specific ambitions of States. Thirdly, it may be a contribution to a war between powers, particularly through the European DSA and the data war, with the advantage of European maturity in Compliance Law as an extension of Regulatory Law and the disadvantage that we could move from a war in the metaphorical sense (never use metaphors in Law) to a war. Quaterly, it could be a new rule of Law in which systemic companies participate in an alliance to achieve Monumental political Goals decided by States and political authorities, preserving systems for the future ("sustainability") so that human beings are not crushed by them but benefit from them. The disadvantage is that we have to relearn the Law, because although it has nothing to do with conformity, which is only an instrument, Compliance Law changes all branches of Law and requires the integration of other techniques, particularly political and technological ones.

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In third part, in practice, we must strive in advance to reduce the disadvantages associated with the shortcomings of possible future developments in Compliance Law, just as we must strive in advance to increase the advantages associated with the qualities of possible future developments in Compliance Law. The disadvantage lies in the very nature of Compliance Law, namely its great power, because unlike Competition Law, it calls for and increases power. We must therefore counteract the prospect of compliance techniques, particularly those related to Information, being monopolised by those who only want to use them to consolidate or extend their power, laughing at Ethics and Monumental Goals. This means that supervision techniques on the one hand and a renewed role for judges on the other must be considered. The quality attached to possible futures stems from the fact that we could uphold a "Global Law" (reference to the work of Benoît Frydman, among others) and that, faced with the possible disappearance of Public International Law and the imperative preservation of value chains, particularly in the context of possible war, the alliance between supervised systemic companies and the political authorities in charge of the future of the social group that legitimises them may appear to be a legitimate, effective, efficiate and efficient system.

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⛏️Go further :

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law, 2016

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Conceiving Power, 2021

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Compliance Monumental Goals, 2022

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝The Birth of a New Branch of Law: Compliance Law, 2024

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law and conformity: distinguishing between them to better articulate them, 2024

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Complianceo Obligation, 2025

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation, 2025

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Updated: Feb. 20, 2026 (Initial publication: Aug. 28, 2025)

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Taking African legal geography into account to achieve an efficient vigilance system, working paper, August 2025/February 2026

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🎤This working paper follows on from the closing address at the symposium Devoir de vigilance, quelles perspectives africaines ? Regards croisés en droit international, droit comparé et droit OHADA (Vigilance Duty: what are the prospects in Africa? Perspectives from international law, comparative law and OHADA Law, organised by the Faculty of Law of Bordeaux, through its Institut de Recherches en Droit des Affaires et du Patrimoine - IRDAP (Institute for Research in Business and Property Law), held on 15 November 2024.

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📝This working paper forms the basis of the article "Considérer la géographie juridique africaine pour y réussir l'obligation de vigilance", which concludes the volume edited by Eustache da Allada in 2026 by Éditions Lefebvre-Dalloz, in the “Thèmes & Commentaires” collection,📗Devoir de vigilance, quelles perspectives africaines ? Regards croisés en droit international, droit comparé et droit OHADA (Vigilance Duty: what are the African perspectives? Comparative perspectives in international law, comparative law and OHADA Law).

To this end, following an initial draft in August 2025, it was revised a second time to better incorporate the written contributions that make up the book, since the article on which it is based sets out a personal approach drawing on external research whilst also needing to synthesise these contributions.

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► Summary of the working paper : The French “Vigilance” Act of 2017 incorporated the technical provisions and the spirit of the “Sapin 2” Act of 2016. They share a common goal. They have been and remain a common source of controversy and passion. At their heart lies the establishment of a “compliance obligation”, for which vigilance techniques form the “edge ” in serving a grand ambition: to protect systems from risks, both now and in the future, in order to protect the people involved in them.

The passion that continues to surround the Vigilance Act, which gave rise to the European CS3D , is misguided, because the law and passion are never allies. Some would passionately want to see vigilance triumph by condemning companies to perform miracles; others would passionately want to see the destruction of all the texts that established the very concept of this Compliance Law, built upon these Humanist Monumental Goals.

But let us acknowledge that in these debates on the Vigilance Obligation, which is being legally implemented across value chains, Africa is often cited as an example in a general discussion. It is not often considered as a distinct case with its own legal landscape. No reliance is placed on its strengths or on its own legal mechanisms, even though value chains – particularly industrial ones – so often lead to it, both now and in the future. Through analyses of the Vigilance Obligation, Africa is perceived as a place of retribution or of a new form of paternalism, and when its future is envisaged, prospects seem to be lacking, even though the very essence of compliance—and therefore of Vigilance—is the future.

If we take a less confrontational view and focus instead on the ‘legal geography’ of African countries and their social and inter-state structures, we see that the concern for others, both present and future – which ultimately constitutes the Monumental Goal of Compliance Law and thus of the Vigilance Obligation – is more prevalent in Africa than it is in Europe, which is now built upon legal individualism. This concern for others is reflected in legal mechanisms akin to mediation and various legal structures that our own institutions would do well to heed: our legislators before adopting bills, and our judges who might listen to them as amici curiae before reaching a decision.

If we turn our attention to the African continent, which is exploited by certain segments of value chains, and to labour organisations, it becomes clear that here too, legislation and sanctions are not the whole story. Compliance techniques that make use of soft law and the contractual frameworks underpinning the chains themselves can remove the element of abstraction that is, by nature, inherent in general legislation. Moving forward through contracts under the supervision and with the support of the courts is an approach that could prove more fruitful than well-intentioned legislation, which has served as a catalyst, in line with the privileged position of contract law within OHADA.

This serves to enhance the judge’s authority. The Compliance Judicialisation is also linked to the growing connection between Compliance and Contracts. However, it appears that not only can European judges specialising in Compliance Law and Vigilance Obligation thus rule on matters concerning Africa, which they can only know from a distance – though it is the lot of every judge to be an outsider – but African and inter-state Courts, notably through OHADA, can address the Vigilance Obligation because value chains are constituted by contracts. By developing it not as a foreign concept to be assimilated, but as that which expresses the very heart of the Law in Africa: concern for others, solidarity, the search for compromises and solutions so that the social and environmental system – that is to say, the human system – may endure into the Future.

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🔓Read the developments below⤵️

Feb. 11, 2026

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Pouvoir économique et responsabilité , in M. Fabre-Magnan et P. Lokiec (dir.), Les limites juridiques au pouvoir économique

► Référence complète : M. Fabre-Magna, « Pouvoir économique et responsabilité », in M. Fabre-Magnan et P. Lokiec (dir.), Les limites juridiques au pouvoir économique, Lefebvre-Dalloz, coll. « Thèmes et Commentaires – Etudes », 2026, pp.177-194.

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Jan. 29, 2026

Conferences

🎤Le Droit de la Compliance, voie de la transition vers une égalité effective, efficace et efficiente entre les êtres humains (Compliance Law, for the transition towards the effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency of the equality between human beings), in 🧮Les banques coopératives et les transitions

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📝La difficulté de réguler, faute de données disponibles nombreuses et fiables : illustrations

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Le Droit de la Compliance, voie de la transition vers une égalité effective, efficace et efficiente entre les êtres humains (Compliance Law, for the transition towards the effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency of the equality between human beings)", in Chair "Mutualist and cooperative banking at the service of the economy", ESCP, Les banques coopératives et les transitions (Cooperative Banks and Transitions), 29 January 2026.

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🧮view the general programme for the conference Cooperative banks and transitions (in French)

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📶see the slides (in French)

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► Presentation of this conference: The conference is not specifically aimed at lawyers, and even less so at specialists in Compliance Law. That is why it is divided into three parts, in order to show how Compliance Law is relevant in practice for creating effective, efficace and efficient equality between human beings.

The first part of the lecture sets out the ambition of equality between human beings. As this is a political principle and not a natural one. As it is an ambition, it justifies being placed first and after that this ambition must be concretised, in a sort of second place. This second place is built bay a tro : that of effectiveness (real application of the norm), efficacy (that the goal for which the norm was established is achieved) and efficiency (that the system is transformed so that, having become robust, it endures through sustainabily).

The second part of the conference will present the new branch of law known as Compliance Law. This should be distinguished from simple conformity, which consists of mechanically obeying a body of regulations that are constantly growing and becoming more complex. Compliance Law's Goal is to protect systems from risks that could cause them to disappear (all systems). "Sustainability" is the key principle, which is not limited to the climatic system (also digital system, banking system, and so on) and imposes the future as its object and the long term as its relevant time frame (unlike the market and Competition Law). "Transition" is also a key concept, as it involves moving from one state to another, from an expressed ambition to its realisation, through collaboration with others. These Goals are "Monumental" and are the normative legal basis of Compliance Law. In Europe, the Compliance Monumental Goal is to preserve systems for that the human beings who are involved in them, willingly or unwillingly, are not crushed by them, but rather benefit from them (for instance in banking sector). This is a "Monumental Negative Goal", to which is added a "Monumental Positive Goal", which a new conception of the "Ex Ante Responsability" (not liabily).

Dialectically, the third part of the conference explains how Compliance Law internalises the political ambition of equality between human beings, which develops in the three concentric circles of effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency, among the operators best placed to contribute to it.

Mutual banks belong to these circles more than the others. Firstly, because they are structured around the principle of taking human beings into consideration. Secondly, because they are rooted in their local areas. Thirdly, because they are driven by the long term, duration and sustainable. The transition est easer. The dificulty is the necessity to proof the effective and efficient will to do this transition.

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⛏️Go further :

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Drawing the circles of Compliance Law, 2017

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Monumental goals, the beating heart of compliance law, 2021

🕴🏻C. Peicuti and 🕴🏻J. Beyssade, 📝The feminisation of management positions in companies as a compliance objective. The example of the banking sector, in 🕴🏻M. -A. Frison-Roche, 📘The Monumental Goals of Compliance, 2022

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Births of a New Branch of Law: Compliance Law, 2024

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Jan. 25, 2026

Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation

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► Référence complète : M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La difficulté de réguler, faute de données disponibles nombreuses et fiables : illustrations", Newsletter MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation, 25 janvier 2026

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🌐lire l'article paru sur LinkedIn

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► Résumé de l'article : On

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📝⤵lire l'article ci-dessous⤵

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Jan. 22, 2026

Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation

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

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🌐read this article published on LinkedIn the 23 January 2026

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► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Asset freezing in the legal saga between American power and Venezuelan wealth", MAFR Law, Compliance, Regulation Newsletter, 23 January 2026

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► Summary of this article : It is often emphasised that the law is merely a masquerade in the series of events we are witnessing.

This is not entirely true.

For three reasons.

1. Much will depend on the judge who will rule on the Madura couple's case. The energy sector has always similarly mixed regulation, public policies of states and businesses, both articulated by States and companies, both articulated by international contracts, always organising international arbitration

3. If ExxonMobil now refuses to make the investments desired by Trump, it is also because this enterprise remembers that many years ago the freeze of assets granted by the arbitrators was not very successful, and now the company manager believes that investment in Venezuala's infrastructure is therefore "impossible".

And given the current state of the law in the US, there is little Trump can do about it..

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📝⤵Read the complete article below⤵

Jan. 8, 2026

Interviews

💬« Géomètres-experts : une profession qui s’engage dans la compliance »,

🌐suivre Marie-Anne Frison-Roche sur LinkedIn

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► Référence complète : M.-A. Frison-Roche, «"Géomètres-experts : une profession qui s’engage dans la compliance"», interview pour Solution Notaire Hebdo, Lefebvre Dalloz, 8 janvier 2026

Interrogée par Juliette Courquin, journaliste à Solution Notaire Hebdo

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► lire l'entretien : 💬 Lire l'interview au cours duquel les réponses ont été apportées aux questions reproduites ci-dessous⤵

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Q. Pourriez-vous définir le droit de la compliance ?

Q. La compliance se prête-t-il à l'Ordre des géomètres-experts et à la profession elle-même ?

Q. L'OGE et la profession se sont engagés dans la compliance en définissant leur raison d'être, quelles en sont les conséquences juridiques ?

Q. Un dernier mot sur l'Ordre des géomètres-experts et la profession avec qui vous avez travaillé sur la compliance ?

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⛏️Aller plus loin sur la question :

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 🎤Concevoir une raison d'être et l'expliciter, 2025

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Les buts monumentaux de la compliance, coeur battant du droit de la compliance, 2023

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Dec. 10, 2025

Conferences

🎤Saisir les principes du Droit de la Compliance à travers l'actualité (Understanding the principles of compliance law through current current legal cases and events)

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