📝Définition du principe de Proportionnalité et Définition du Droit de la Compliance, in 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📕Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Définition du principe de proportionnalité et définition du Droit de la Compliance" ("Definition of the Proportionality principle and definition of Compliance Law"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2022, p. 245-271.

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📝read the article (in French)

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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, Les Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance, in which this article is published

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): The use of Proportionality always limiting powers is only justified when it is about sanctions, but sanctions are only one tool among others in Compliance Law, intended moreover to have little place in this Ex Ante branch of Law. And returning to the very nature of Compliance Law, which relies on operators, private or public, because they are powerful, then using proportionality to limite powers is detrimental to Compliance Law. 

However, nothing requires that. Compliance Law is not an exception that should be limited. On the contrary, it is a branch of Law which carries the greatest principles, aimed at protecting human beings and whose Normativity lies in its "Monumental Goals": detecting and preventing future major systemic crisis (financial, health and climate ones).

However, literally the principle of Proportionality is: "no more powers than necessary, as many powers as necessary".

The second part of the sentence is independent of the first: this must be used.

Politics having fixed these Monumental Goals, the entity, in particular the company, must have, even tacitly, "all the necessary powers" to achieve them. For example, the power of vigilance, the power of audit, the power over third parties. Because they are necessary to fulfill the obligations that these "crucial operators" must perform as they are "in a position" to do so.

So instead of limiting the powers, the Principe of Proportionality comes to support the powers, to legitimize them and to increase them, so that we have a chance that our future is not catastrophic, perhaps better.

In this respect, Compliance Law, in its rich Definition, will itself have enriched the Principle of Proportionality.