📝Le juge administratif et la compliance, in 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance

► Full Reference: F. Raynaud, "Le juge administratif et la compliance" ("The Administrative Judge and the Compliance Law"), ​in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, p. 473-478.

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📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published

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► Summary of the article (done par the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): The author studies the close relationship between Compliance Law and Soft Law, such as the Administrative Judge has made room for it in his case law. This was particularly the case with the judgments of the Conseil d'État (French Council of State) in 2016, relating to legal topic of Regulatory Law, which is extended by Compliance Law.

This concern to internalize in companies what the public authorities want had also been taken into consideration by the Conseil d'État by small touches from 2010 and has continually expanded. This is particularly the case when the document issued is "de nature à produire des effets notables, notamment de nature économique, ou ont pour objet d'influer de manière significative sur les comportements des personnes auxquelles ils s'adressent" ("likely to produce significant effects, in particular of an economic nature, or are intended to significantly influence the behavior of the people to whom they are addressed"), which is related to compliance issues directly. This new concept adopted by the Conseil d'État has led it to review and control numerous "positions", "recommendations", "guidelines", etc., adopted by multiple authorities, to protect the persons on whom these acts have a "notable effect", the Conseil sometimes not hesitating to censor the issuing body. In Banking compliance, the Soft Law, more specifically issued by the European Banking Authority, gave the Administrative Judge the opportunity to adjust his control with that exercised by the Court of Justice seized by a preliminary question.

Thus, "Par sa jurisprudence sur la justiciabilité des actes de droit de souple, le Conseil d’Etat s’affirme donc comme un acteur de la compliance en permettant aux entités visées par ces actes et soumises à leur égard à une obligation de compliance de saisir le juge administratif d’un recours en annulation contre ces actes, afin qu’ils puissent être soumis à un contrôle de légalité et, le cas échéant, annulés" ("Through its case law on the justiciability of Soft Law acts, the Conseil d'État therefore asserts itself as a compliance actor by allowing the entities covered by these acts and subject to a compliance obligation in their regard to seize the administrative judge of an action for annulment against these acts, so that these acts can be subjected to a control of legality and, if necessary, annulled").

But must the administrative judge be seized. It can be the case in new fields, for example in climate matters, as he we in the Grande Synthe case. By its decision, "Le Conseil d’Etat va ainsi au bout de la logique du dispositif mis en place par le législateur et par le pouvoir réglementaire pour mettre en œuvre les accords de Paris, lesquels reposent sur une forme de compliance à l’échelle mondiale, chaque Etat signataire s’engageant, en quelque sorte, à faire le nécessaire pour atteindre un objectif commun à une date donnée, à charge pour chacun de s’organiser pour l’atteindre. En l’absence d’un juge international capable de vérifier le respect de ces engagements, le juge national apparait le plus naturel pour accepter de vérifier, lorsqu’il est saisi d’un litige en ce sens, que ces engagements ne restent pas lettre morte. " ("The Conseil d'État thus goes to the end of the logic of the system put in place by the legislator and by the administrative power to implement the Paris Agreements, which are based on a form of compliance at the worldwide scale, each signatory State undertaking, in a way, to do what is necessary to achieve a common goal by a given date, it being up to each to organize itself to achieve it. to verify compliance with these commitments, the national judge seems the most natural to accept to verify, when seized of a dispute in this sense, that these commitments do not remain a dead letter".).

Through this general movement,  "La compliance est devenue un nouveau mode de régulation d’un nombre croissant d’activités. " ("Compliance has become a new way of regulating a growing number of activities.").

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