📝Compliance, in 🕴️J.-Fr. Kerléo et 🕴️E. Lemaire (dir.), 📗Dictionnaire de l'éthique publique

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Régulation" (Regulatory Law), in J.-Fr. Kerléo et E. Lemaire (dir.), Dictionnaire de l'éthique publique, LexisNexis, 2025, pp. 

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📗read the general presentation of the Dictionary.

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📝read the article  (in French)

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► English Summary of this article defining Regulation: To define Regulation (Regulatory Law), the article begins with its origins, which were a source of misunderstanding, since the term Regulation might refer to simple regulations, thus masking the real branch of Law which is the Law of Regulation. But this confusion with simple and formal regulations has diminished Regulatory Law its importance, its novelty and its originality, and, by placing it within Public Law, equated Regulation on the one hand with the transition from public monopolies to a competitive organisation, and on the other hand privileged the legal study of what fell within the remit of the Administrative Courts, i.e. telecommunications, transport and energy, leaving out the Regulatory Law of banking and financial sector . As a result, the unity and strength of Regulatory Law is still difficult to perceive and manage today, while its relationship with competition and Europe remains difficult.

Regulatory Law is all the more difficult to define because it is still common to oppose, as was the case in the 1980s, "Economic Regulatory Law", which would aim to set economic efficiency objectives within the State, and "Public Liberties Regulatory Law", which would be alternatives to each other, preventing the audiovisual, media and digital sectors in particular from being legally perceived as an industry. We are still paying for this initial conception. All the more so since Regulatory Law is the second pillar on which Europe is built, along with Competition, with which it is linked. It can be identified by the existence of a regulated 'sector', most often through the establishment of a regulatory authority, generally in the form of an Independent Administrative Body. But it is defined by the prevalence of the technical and political goals pursued, which are not spontaneously achieved and which aim to favour the human beings involved in economic organisations.

While the function of Competition Authorities is to maintain the dynamism of competitive markets and to punish behaviour that hinders them without creating that dynamism, Regulatory Law, through its own rules, principles, institutions, procedures and decisions, will create non-spontaneous équilibra and maintain them over time.  To do this, it will inject non-spontaneous procedures, such as transparency, or generate obligations and powers because these are necessary for this balance to be achieved. This can take the form of exclusive rights, which can go as far as the creation of monopolies, particularly on transport infrastructures, or the form of pricing and tarification, which can go as far as free access. Access rights are essential, whether technical or political (access to networks, access to healthcare).

The political dimension of Regulatory Law is very much in evidence, as Europe is developing its own form of Regulation compared with the USA or China, demonstrating the link between Regulation and Sovereignty, the criterion? of the technical sector becoming less significant. This is illustrated by the clash over algorithmic systems (AI).  In this way, regulation is not a technical reaction to a "market failure", but the manifestation of a zone's political power both internally and externally. The DSA (2022) is an example of this, imposing this same logic extraterritoriality in the digital space through the Digital Services Act (DSA) adopted in 2022.

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📝read the presentation of the other article written by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche for this Dictionary: "Compliance"

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