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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La considération par l'arbitrage de l'obligation de Compliance pour une place d'arbitrage durable" (Arbitration consideration of Compliance Obligation for a sustainable Arbitration Place), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2025, 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 : The first part of this study assesses the evolving relationship between Arbitration Law and Compliance Law, which depends on the very definition of the Compliance Obligation (I). Indeed, these relations have been negative for as long as Compliance has been seen solely in terms of "conformity", i.e. obeying the rules or being punished. These relationships are undergoing a metamorphosis, because the Compliance Obligation refers to a positive and dynamic definition, anchored in the Monumental Goals that companies anchor in the contracts that structure their value chains.

Based on this development, the second part of the study aims to establish the techniques of Arbitration and the office of the arbitrator to increase the systemic efficiency of the Compliance Obligation, thereby strengthening the attractiveness of the Place (II). First and foremost, it is a question of culture: the culture of Compliance must permeate the world of Arbitration, and vice versa. To achieve this, it is advisable to take advantage of the fact that in Compliance Law the distinction between Public and Private Law is less significant, while the concern for the long term of contractually forged structural relationships is essential.

To encourage such a movement to deploy the Compliance Obligation, promoting the strengthening of a Sustainable Arbitration Place (III), the first tool is the contract. Since contracts structure value chains and enable companies to fulfill their legal Compliance Obligation but also to add their own will to it, stipulations or offers relating to Arbitration should be included in them. In addition, the adoption of non-binding texts can set out a guiding principle to ensure that concern for the Monumental Goals is appropriate in order the Compliance Obligation to be taken into account by Arbitrators.

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► Full Reference: V. Magnier, "Transformation de la gouvernance et obligation de vigilance" (The transformation of governance and due diligence), 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 presentation of the book, L'Obligation de Compliance, in which this contribution is published

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► English summary of this contribution (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : The author develops the tensions caused by Compliance Law and the Duty of Vigilance on corporate governance.

The French "Sapin 2" law targets corruption, while the French "Vigilance" law has a broader scope in terms of risks and the entire value chain. It is logical that this should create tensions in terms of governance, given the monumental goals involved. Companies need to take ownership of the powers delegated to them, which means rethinking their governance and the way in which they exercise their corporate mandates, with the corporate interest, the judge's compass, having to be combined with the adoption of new standards of behaviour formalised voluntarily by ethical charters in line with international standards. On this voluntary and supervised basis, the company must adapt its structure and then contractualise these norms.

This ethical approach has an impact on the role of corporate organs, not only in terms of transparency and risk prioritisation, but also proactively in terms of the adoption of commitments whose sincerity will be verified, as reflected, for example, in corporate governance codes (cf.in France the AFEP-MEDEF Code), the setting up of ad hoc committees and the presence of stakeholders, who will be consulted when the vigilance plan is drawn up.

She stresses that this creates tensions, that dialogue is difficult, that business secrecy must be preserved, but that stakeholders must become Vigilance watchdogs, a role that should not be left to the public authorities alone.

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🦉this article is available in full text pour the persons following the Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche teaching

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► Référence complète : Th. Goujon-Bethan, "Les enjeux présents à venir de l’articulation des principes de procédure civile et commerciale avec la logique de compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2025, à paraître

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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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► Résumé de l'article (fait par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : L'auteur montre que le Code de procédure civile, parce qu'il est exceptionnellement bien conçu et dirigé, peut répondre à l'ampleur de la transformation que le Droit de la Compliance apporte.

Le Droit de la Compliance est normativement ancré dans ses Buts Monumentaux : ceux-ci sont portés en tant que tels devant le juge dans des "causes systémiques".

Or, le Code de procédure civile distingue, et les travaux des auteurs du Code comme ceux de la doctrine le montrent, qu'il faut distinguer le litige et le conflit. En effet, dans une "cause systémique" telle que le Droit de la Compliance les emporte nécessairement (climat, protection des internautes, égalité effective des êtres humains, durabilité des systèmes bancaires, etc.) ce sont des parties qui sont en litiges, tandis que le conflit embrasse lui les systèmes eux-mêmes et d'autres entités.
La procédure doit intégrer non seulement le litige mais encore le conflit. Cela implique notamment que l'on s'occupe non seulement du litige, mais encore du conflit, lequel ne s'éteint pas nécessairement avec le litige, et ne trouve pas les mêmes solutions que celles demandées par le litige. C'est notamment dans cette dernière perspective, essentiellement dans une procédure de "Cause Systémique de Compliance" que les techniques de médiation, d'amicus curiae, d'un juge qui se situe ex ante, etc., s'imposent. Elles sont disponibles à travers des articles du Code de procédure civile : il suffit que les juges, comprenant ce que sont les "Causes Systémiques de Compliance" s'en saisissent.

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation, Working Paper, August 2025.

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📝 This bilingual Working Paper is the basis of the article published in French "Droit de la compliance et contentieux systémique"

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► Summary of this Working Paper: Legal systems have changed, and Compliance Law, in its uniqueness, reflects this change and plays a powerful role in it. New sets of compliance rules, particularly at European Union level, covering data protection (GDPR), anti-money laundering (AMLA), climate balance protection (CS3D) and banking and financial system sustainability (Banking Union), have been developed and imposed on large companies, which must implement them: alerts, mapping, assessment, sanctions, etc. These new regulatory frameworks only make sense in relation to their ‘Monumental Goals’: to detect systemic risks ex ante and prevent crises so that the systems in question do not collapse, but ‘last’. All the legal instruments in the corpus are normatively rooted in these monumental goals, which are the core that unifies Compliance Law (I).

The judge is the guardian of this new and highly ambitious regulatory framework, which relies on the practical ability of companies to implement it (II). Courts ensure that the legal technical provisions are applied in a teleological manner in each of these compliance blocks and that the regulations support each other, because all compliance regulations serve the same systemic goal: to ensure that the systems (banking, financial, climate, digital, energy, etc.) do not collapse, but sustains, and that present and future human beings are not crushed by them, but rather benefit from them. This unity is still little perceived because so meticulous regulations pulverise this profound unity of Compliance Law into a myriad of changing provisions. Entrusting the ‘regulatory mass’ to algorithms increases this fragmentation, making the whole even more incomprehensible and therefore impossible to handle. On the contrary, recognising the judge's place, i.e. at the centre, makes it possible to master this new branch of law. But the judge's sole function is not to restore clarity to a body of law covered by the dust of its own technicality.

There is a transfer to Litigation of the systemic object of Compliance Law. Indeed, the litigation that emerges from the new Compliance Law is itself fundamentally new, by transitivity. Indeed, the purpose of Compliance Law is to make systems sustainable (or resilient, or robust, depending on the terminology used). This results in litigation that is itself ‘Systemic Litigation’ (III), most often brought by an organisation against a systemic operator. The place and role of each party are transformed (IV).

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Compliance Obligation: build a compliance structure producing credible effects in the perspective of the Monumental Goals targeted by the Legislator, Working Paper, March 2024.

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📝 This Working Paper is the basis of the article "Compliance Obligation: build a compliance structure producing credible effects in the perspective of the Monumental Goals targeted by the Legislator", in📘 Compliance 'Obligation de Compliance,

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► Summary of this Working Paper: This article explains what companies' Compliance Obligation" is. Delving into the mass of compliance obligations, it uses the method of classification of those that are subject to an obligation of result and those that are subject to an obligation of means. It justifies the choice of this essential criterion, which changes the objects and the burden of proof of companies that are subject to an obligation of result when it comes to setting up "compliance structures" and are subject to an obligation of means when it comes to the effects produced by these compliance structures.

Indeed, this article goes on to analyse each body of regulations ("Sapins 2", "Vigilance", CSRD, CS3D, DSA, NIS2, DMA, DORA, AML-FT, ....) and the technical compliance obligations they impose, dividing them into obligations of result or obligations of means, depending on the text. This table of positive law thus drawn up, with reference to all the articles of the texts, shows that in positive law the Compliance Obligation has above all an evidential dimension, which is developed in the third part of the article: the company must show that it has put in place the compliance structures (obligations of result) required by the texts and it is up to third parties who criticise it for the unsatisfactory effects that these structures would have produced, according to them, to show that there is a fault or negligence on the part of the company (obligation of means).

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

Although it would be risky to transpose the expression and regime of contractual obligations to legal obligations put by legislation, starting from this observation in the evidentiary system of compliance of a plurality of obligations of means and of result, depending on whether it is a question of this or that technical compliance obligation, we must first classify them. It would then appear that this plurality will not constitute a definitive obstacle to the constitution 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 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 (effaciety) are obligations of means. This is even more the case when the Goal 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, commensurate with these Goals. In addition, because these structures (alert mechanisms, training, audits, contracts and clauses, etc.)  have real meaning if they are to produce effects and behaviours that lead 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 Goals 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 company, responsible Ex Ante, should organise itself and behave.

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, member of the jury for Annika Bauch's thesis, Le droit de l'entreprise à l'épreuve de la compliance (Company Law put to the test of Compliance), University of Toulouse, 5 June 2025, 2-5pm. 

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🪑🪑🪑Other members of the jury :  

🕴🏻Lukas Rass-Masson, Professor at Toulouse-Capitole University, thesis supervisor

🕴🏻Sandrine Tisseyre,  Professor at Toulouse-Capitole University, 

🕴🏻Marc-Philippe Weller,  Professor at the University of Heidelberg, Germany

🕴🏻Caroline Coupet, Professor at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II)

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► Presentation of the thesis: The thesis is based on French, American and German research. It is based on two perspectives.

The first part of the thesis describes the way in which Business Law  feeds into Compliance, since it is within Business Law (and more particularly Company Law and the legal rules governing corporate bodies) that Compliance, which the author presented  to have originated in the United States, has transformed the way in which companies must be managed, having to take into account the extra-financial dimension of their activity, which modifies the very notion of social interest and leads to the integration of stakeholders into the corporate functioning.

The second part of the thesis looks at the way in which Compliance has transformed Corporate Law, bringing with it new requirements, such as consideration of risks, regulatory mechanisms and ethical concerns, with the company itself becoming a vehicle for Compliance. This is achieved in particular by inserting compliance clauses into contracts, which is an appropriate but nevertheless limited tool for this compliance goal.

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At the end of her defence, the candidate was awarded the degree of Doctor of Law and was informally congratulated by her jury on the quality of her work.

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Référence complète : Haut Comité Juridique de la Place de Paris, Les impacts juridiques et réglementaires de l'Intelligence Artificielle en matière bancaire, financière et des assurances, juin 2025.

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Lire le rapport

► Référence complète : Paris, pôle 5, ch. 12, 17 juin 2025, RG n° 24-05193, S.A. La Poste

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🏛️Lire l'arrêt

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► Référence complète : M.-A. Frison-Roche, La polysémie de la "Vigilance": la Vigilance bancaire précisée par les lignes directrices du 23 avril 2025 face à la Vigilance de la loi du 23 mars 2017,  document de travail , juin 2025

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📝 Ce document de travail est le sous-jacent de la Newsletter  Video Surplomb du ....  2025 : regarder la Video

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► Résumé du document de travail :  A 

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🔓lire le document de travail ci-dessous ⤵️

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Le Droit de la compliance, voie royale pour réguler l'espace numérique" (Compliance Law as a Royal Road for regulating the Digital Space), in P. Bonis et L. Castex (dir.), Compliance et nouvelles régulation, Annales des Mines, coll. "Enjeux numériques", juin 2025, pp.69-77.

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📝 read the article (in French) 

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🚧This article is underpinned by a English Working Paper in English, with additional technical developments and hypertext links. : Compliance Law as a Royal Road for regulating the Digital Space

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► English Summary of this article:  In order to describe the role of Compliance Law in regulating the digital space and to conclude that this new branch of Law is the 'royal road' to this end, this study proceeds in 6 stages. 

Firstly, at first sight and conceptually, there is a gap between the political idea of Regulating and the ideas (freedom and technology as 'law') on which the digital space has been built and is unfolding. 

Secondly, in practice, there is such a huge gap between the ordinary methods of Regulatory Law, which are backed by a State, and the organisation of the Digital Space by these economic operators, that are both American and global. 

Thirdly, the political claim to civilise the Digital Space remains and is growing, relying on the very strength of the entities capable of realising this ambition, these entities being the crucial digital operators themselves, seized as Ex Ante. 

Fourthly, it corresponds to the conception and practice of a new branch of Law, Compliance Law, which should not be confused with "conformity" and which is normatively anchored in its "Monumental Goals". 

Fifthly, Compliance Law internalises Monumental Goals in the digital operators which disseminate them through structures and behaviours in the digital space. 

Sixthly, through the interweaving of legislation, court rulings and corporate behaviour, the Monumental Goals are given concrete expression, willingly or by force, in ways that can civilise the digital space without undermining the primacy of freedom.

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► Full Reference: P. Bonis & M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Réguler le numérique, ou Sisyphe heureux" (Regulating Digital, or a happy Sisyphus), in P. Bonis & L. Castex (dir.), Compliance et Nouvelles Régulations, Les Annales des Mines, series "Enjeux numériques, June 2025, p.5-7.

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📝read the article (in French)

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📗read the table of content of this special issue of Enjeux numérique, Régulation et Compliance (in French), in which this introductory article is published.

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► English Summary of this article: This introduction to the collective publication on Regulation and Compliance, which aims to bring order to the Digital space, takes up the idea expressed by Camus when he referred to 'happy' Sisyphus, and expresses the idea that Regulation and Compliance are applied to this area with difficulty, relentlessness and failure, with texts constantly being adopted, modified and amplified on all sides, while the Digital Space is constantly changing, and the slope is constantly being climbed again. But this should not be seen as a failure, not even a flaw, because it is in the nature of digital regulation to always place the regulatory apparatus on our shoulders.

This weight is shared by all, by the Authorities of all countries, because there is something common to all and also because there is something specific for each, because the techniques differ and because the visions of the world that the Politicians print in the texts and project in the Digital will always differ. This weight is also shared by companies, which internalise the rules through Compliance mechanisms, making them necessary agents for the efficiency and sustainability of the digital system, but also players in it, in articulation with Internet users in a permanent and unstable articulation with the local to the finest and this global that the Internet has invented.

This presentation opens the series of contributions to the collective publication Régulation et Compliance, which makes up this special issue of Enjeux numériques in Annales des Mines.

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🌐read also the English presentation of:🕴️Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, 📝Le Droit de la compliance, voie royale pour réguler l'espace numérique (Compliance Law as a Royal Road for regulating the Digital Space)

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► Full Reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, To master the regulatory mass of Compliance, think of it as a jigsaw puzzle,  Working Paper , May 2025

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📝 This Working Paper underpins the Newsletter MAFR Law -Compliance - Regulation  of 2 June 2025 : 

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► Summary of this Working Paper:  People are rightly complaining that Europe's regulatory and compliance regulations are too numerous, too complicated and too changeable. As a result, they are said to be unmanageable.

Three solutions are proposed: specialise lawyers, regulatory corpus by regulatory corpus; deregulate; entrust everything to algorithms.

These are inadequate solutions, because regulations cannot be understood unless they are put into perspective with the rest of the legal rules .; we have entered a new world, and these new regulations reflect the need for a new Law (unless we want to destroy the Law itself, which is what some people are dreaming of doing); algorithms reproduce past solutions and do not produce the new legal conception required.

For an appropriate solution, we need to move away from a word-by-word understanding of the regulatory and compliance regulations and understand them as a whole, not only in relation to the purpose that gives them meaning, but also in relation to each other. In the positive sense of the term, they form a European 'jigsaw puzzle'. We need to look at the overall picture in which each regulation fits and makes sense. It finds its simplicity in relation to its purpose.

It is always a question of working towards the sustainability of systems by asking companies to contribute so that the systems do not crush human beings but benefit them. Thus, in practice, the Monumental Goals of Compliance Law give clarity to the body of regulations which, when seen as a whole, are manageable and practical. Judges interpret them in this way.

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🔓read the Working Paper below⤵️

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► Full Reference: M.A. Frison-Roche, "100 fois remettre la Compliance sur le métier de la Stratégie" (100 times put Compliance back on the Strategy agenda), in Lettre d'information Compliance. Groupe SNCF, 100ième issue, 28 may 2025.

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📝read the article (in French)

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► English presentation of this article: This anniversary article sets out what Compliance is and should be in a large group. It expresses it in 4 points:

1. Actively master regulations by understanding their spirit

2. Improving risk detection without taking away the entrepreneurial spirit

3. Promoting convergence and managing conflict

4. Strengthen the company's identity by focusing on its strategic ambitions

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► Référence complète : L. Murphy,  "Legal Practice et the Responsibility of Individuals", conférence au Collège de France,12 mai 2025.

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📻écouter la conférence

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► Présentation de la conférence (faite par le Collège de France) : Some legal practices, such as the private law of obligations and property, are justified by the good that general compliance with their rules bring about. It cannot be said, however, that each particular act of compliance by individuals itself contributes to that good outcome. And yet there is clearly an ethical tie between individuals and the rules of the practices. Leaving aside cases where the law simply protects independent moral rights, the same points can be made about compliance with law generally.

This lecture explores the question of how we should understand the ethical tie between individuals and legal practices that are justified in terms of the social good produced by general compliance. An imperfect duty of impartial beneficence will play a central role in the account.

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► Référence complète : G. Beaumier & L. Gjesvik, "Digital Governance in a Rubber Band: Structural Constraints in Governing a Global Digital Economy", Global Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, issue 2.

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📝lire l'article

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► Résumé de l'article (fait les auteurs) : L’on représente souvent les États-Unis, l’Union européenne et la Chine comme l’incarnation de trois modèles de gouvernance numérique qui s’opposent. Leurs approches « de marché », « démocratique » et « autoritaire » refléteraient leurs préférences respectives s’agissant des acteurs qui devraient contrôler le développement et l’utilisation des technologies numériques. Nous affirmons qu’outre le fait de représenter différentes préférences, chaque modèle se distingue par la façon dont il résout les tensions inhérentes au gouvernement d’une économie numérique dans un contexte mondial. Lors de la création de nouvelles politiques numériques, les juridictions doivent composer avec les tensions pour atteindre trois objectifs: le maintien d’une autonomie réglementaire, la promotion de la compétitivité sur le marché et le soutien d’écosystèmes numériques ouverts et interopérables. Chose remarquable, plus elles s’efforcent d’atteindre au moins l’un de ces objectifs, plus il est difficile de progresser sur les autres, mécanisme qui met en évidence un « effet d’élastique ». Nous utilisons cet argument pour comprendre les changements de politique numérique au cœur de chaque juridiction, soulignant ce faisant qu’elles font montre de plus de dynamisme que l’on ne l’imagine généralement.

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The United States, the European Union, and China are often portrayed as representing three competing models of digital governance. Their so-called market, democratic, and authoritarian approach supposedly reflects their respective preferences over which actors should control the development and use of digital technologies. We argue that more than representing different preferences, each model differs in how it resolves inherent tensions associated with governing a digital economy in a global context. When devising new digital policies, jurisdictions must navigate tensions between achieving three policy objectives: maintaining regulatory autonomy, promoting market competitiveness, and supporting open and interoperable digital ecosystems. Significantly, the more they push to achieve one or more of these objectives, the harder it becomes to pursue the other(s), reflecting what we call a “rubber band” effect. We use this argument to make sense of changes in the digital policy in each jurisdiction, highlighting in the process their greater dynamism than often assumed.

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Con frecuencia, se tiende a presentar a Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea y China como representantes de tres modelos de gobernanza digital que compiten entre sí. Sus respectivos enfoques (de mercado, democrático y autoritario) reflejan, supuestamente, sus respectivas preferencias con respecto a qué actores deben controlar el desarrollo y el uso de las tecnologías digitales. Argumentamos que, más que representar preferencias diferentes, cada modelo difiere en la forma en que resuelve las tensiones inherentes asociadas con la gobernanza de una economía digital en un contexto global. A la hora de diseñar nuevas políticas digitales, las jurisdicciones deben sortear las tensiones entre el logro de tres objetivos en materia de políticas: mantener la autonomía regulatoria, promover la competitividad del mercado y apoyar ecosistemas digitales abiertos e interoperables. Resulta significativo que cuanto más se esfuerzan los Gobiernos por lograr uno o más de estos objetivos, más difícil se vuelve perseguir el otro o los otros, lo que se refleja en lo que llamamos un efecto de «banda elástica». Utilizamos esta hipótesis con el fin de dar sentido a los cambios en materia de política digital de cada jurisdicción, destacando, en el proceso, que tienen un mayor dinamismo de lo que muchas veces se supone.

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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 : Rapport France Stratégie, M. de Montaignac (coord.), c. Joly et P. Furic, Lutter contre les stéréotypes filles-garçons. Quel bilan de la décennie, quelles priorités d’ici 2030 ? , préf. Cl. Beaune, mai 2025.

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📓lire le rapport

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📝Lire la préface de Clément Beaune.

Dans cette préface, il insiste sur l'importance des réseaux sociaux sur la recrudescence des stéréotypes et sur la nécessité de réguler les plateformes dans cette perspectives.

Dans le rapport, voir les développements sur les stratégies des plateformes p.251 et s., spéc. p.293 et s. : "La construction de l’identité sociale en ligne se fait principalement sous le contrôle des plateformes et des réseaux socionumériques avec des mécanismes d’autorégulation insuffisants et de régulation publique peu efficaces".

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Compliance law as a Royal Road for regulating the Digital Space, Working Paper, May 2025

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📝 This Working Paper is the English basis for an article written in French "Le Droit de la compliance, voie royale pour réguler l'espace numérique", in 📕

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► Summary of this Working Paper: In order to describe the role of Compliance Law in regulating the digital space and to conclude that this new branch of Law is the 'royal road' to this end, this study proceeds in 6 stages. Firstly, at first sight and conceptually, there is a gap between the political idea of Regulating and the ideas (freedom and technology as 'law') on which the digital space has been built and is unfolding. Secondly, in practice, there is such a huge gap between the ordinary methods of Regulatory Law, which are backed by a State, and the organisation of the Digital Space by these economic operators, that are both American and global. Thirdly, the political claim to civilise the Digital Space remains and is growing, relying on the very strength of the entities capable of realising this ambition, these entities being the crucial digital operators themselves, seized as Ex Ante. Fourthly, it corresponds to the conception and practice of a new branch of Law, Compliance Law, which should not be confused with "conformity" and which is normatively anchored in its "Monumental Goals". Fifthly, Compliance Law internalises Monumental Goals in the digital operators which disseminate them through structures and behaviours in the digital space. Sixthly, through the interweaving of legislation, court rulings and corporate behaviour, the Monumental Goals are given concrete expression, willingly or by force, in ways that can civilise the digital space without undermining the primacy of freedom.

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🔓read the Working Paper below⤵️

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La Vigilance, pointe avancée et part totale de l’Obligation de Compliance" (Vigilance, the cutting edge and a full part of the Compliance Obligation), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance" 2025, 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 : The "duty of vigilance" unleashes all the more radical and passionate positions, sometimes among Law professors, because it has not been precisely defined. One word is used for another, either inadvertently or deliberately, deliberately if it can attract this or that element from one legal corpus and import it into another.  The very exercise of definition is therefore required in practice. There are specific obligations of vigilance that come under such and such a body of regulations and are imposed on such and such a category of operators to fulfill such and such a function. These are precise circles which are not confused and must not be confused. This is superimposed on what the French 2017 law so-called "Vigilance law", which is much more encompassing since it applies to all large companies in the operation of the value chains they have set up. The European 2024 directive is in the same way. But there is no general duty or obligation of Vigilance. Such a claim would be based on confusing or shifting each of these 3 levels, which must be avoided because no positive law does support this (I).

If the duty of vigilance is attracting so much attention, whether or not the European CS3D is fully effective, it is because Vigilance is the "cutting edge" of Compliance Obligation (II). Vigilance requires companies, by consideration of their power and without reproaching them for it or demanding that it be reduced, to detect risks of damage to the environment and climate, but also to human rights, because they are in a position to do so in order to prevent them from turning into disasters. In this respect, the  Vigilance duty makes clearer the exact legal nature of the Compliance Obligation.

Moreover, Vigilance appears as the Total Part of the Compliance Obligation (III). Indeed, although it is restricted to one area, the value chain, and to two types of risk, deterioration of the environment and deterioration of human rights, it expresses the totality of the Compliance Obligation by means of tools that the 2017 French "Vigilance law" had itself duplicated from the 2016 so-called "Sapin 2 law": to preserve systems today, but above all tomorrow, in order they do not collapse (Negative Monumental Goals), or even consolidate them (Positive Monumental Goals), so that the human beings who are willingly or unwillingly involved in them are not crushed by them but benefit from them. This is why large companies are subject to the Obligation of Compliance and Vigilance, particularly in the humanist conception that Europe is developing.

The result is a new type of Litigation, of a systemic nature, for which the Courts have spontaneously become specialised, and for which the procedures will have to be adapted and the office  of the Judge shall have to evolve.

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► Full Reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, The judge required for an effective Compliance Obligation, Working Paper, June 2024

The judge required for an effective Compliance Obligation

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📝 this Working Paper is the basis of the contribution "Le juge requis pour une Obligation de Compliance effective", in 📘Compliance Obligation

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► Summary of this Working Paper: The Judge is a character who seems weak in a Compliance Law that seems so powerful in a world where Technology is developing even a more impressive power. But present and future cases show, on the contrary, that he or she has a central role to play and that his/her role must be to use his/her own strength to remain what he/she is: the guardian of the Rule of Law, which is not so obvious because many Compliance tools, which are technological in nature, are in a way 'insensitive' to what we hold dear, the protection of human beings, which is based on the diligence of companies (I). 

The second role that we can expect of the Judge is that not only does he/she help to ensure the permanence of this Rule of Law, which relies to a large extent on him:Her in the face of a future world that is unknown to us, mainly in its digital and climatic dimensions, perspectives that Compliance Law seeks to grasp, by renewing Regulation Law, by acting in relation to companies whose role is active, which leads the Judge to control them and to be aware of the claims that can be made against them, without taking the place of their management powers (II). This presupposes a new method (III), and all the judges, however diverse, will converge in an active dialogue between the judges, which will enable, firstly, the traditional role of the judge, linked to the Rule of Law, to endure in a rapidly changing world and, secondly, each judge to take on this new role implied by Compliance Law (IV).

The perfect triangle will then be established, the strength and simplicity of which allows the use of the singular and the retention of capital letters for each of these three terms: Regulation Compliance Judge.

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🔓read the Working Paper below⤵️

► Référence complète : ACPR & Tracfin, Lignes directrices conjointes à l'Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution et de Tracfin relatives aux obligations de vigilance sur les opérations et aux obligations de déclaration et d'information à Tracfin, 23 avril 2025

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🔴Lire les lignes directrices

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Arbitration, a highly appropriate technique for deploying Compliance Law, in particular to satisfy the Vigilance Obligation, Working Paper, March 2025.

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🎤 This Working Paper was developed as a basis for the Overhang👁 video  on ...  April 2025 : click HERE 

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🎬🎬🎬In the collection of the Overhangs👁 It falls into the Notion category.

►Watch the complete collection of the Overhangs👁 : click HERE

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► Summary of this Working Paper: If Arbitration has so far not developed much in Compliance Law, it is because this new branch of Law is not well known. Indeed, if it were simply a matter of 'conformity' with mandatory regulations, then Arbitration involving rights that are freely available to the parties and Compliance would be 2 worlds that must ignore each other.

But Compliance Law is defined quite differently. Its normativity lies in the Monumental Goals set by the political authorities, which oblige large companies, because these compagnies are in a position to do so, to contribute to achieving these Goals, namely the future preservation of the Systems (banking, digital, climate, energy, etc.) and human beings involved. While the Goal is constrained, the company is free to choose the means, as long as these means  are credible. Arbitration is one of them. From the arbitration clause to the appropriate award.

One example is the Duty of Vigilance, the cutting edge of Compliance. In order to effectively find solutions in the value chain that the company governs, Arbitration is a suitable means of achieving the Monumental Goals of environmental protection and human rights, under the control of the Judge.

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🔓read the developments below⤵️

► Référence complète : Fr. Ancel et Th. Clay. (dir.), Rapport sur une réforme du Droit français de l'arbitrage, 2025.

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📓Lire le rapport

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🎤lire la présentation de l'audition de à propos de l'articulation entre l'Arbitrage et le Droit de la Compliance, et la considération qui en a été faite par ce rapport.

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, hearing before the French working group on the modernisation of French Arbitration Law, about the issue Arbitrage et Droit de la Compliance : est-il besoin d'un texte ? ("Arbitration and Compliance Law: is a text required?"), Directorate of Civil Affairs' French Ministry of Justice, 13 February 2025.

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► Result of this presentation and the ensuing discussion, recorded in the working group's report published in March 2025 (published in French, translated her: "This report on the guiding principles would not be complete without mentioning the discussions in the working group on the introduction of a guiding principle requiring the arbitral tribunal to take into account "human, environmental and compliance issues, as well as respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of the parties".This proposal gave rise to particularly heated discussions. Some saw it as a scarecrow likely to make French Arbitration Law less attractive and to weaken Arbitration awards, opening up cases of recourse on the pretext of bad faith, even though these values would already be taken into account in the review of domestic or international public policy.  Others, on the other hand, felt that such a text would have the advantage of enshrining an Arbitration Law connected to values that are not exclusively economically oriented, pointing out, moreover, that such a principle would not be redundant with the control of public policy, which intervenes ex post, whereas this text imposes Ex Ante responsability, and that this principle would allow a noteworthy introduction of Compliance Law in rbitration.  They added that the promotion of such values could make it possible to demonstrate a commitment to virtuous arbitration practice. In the light of these differences, after much hesitation, the decision was made not to include it in the draft Code, considering that the final choice was more a question of political dimension that the working group felt it could not decide on its own. ". (p. 36).

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► English Summary of the presentation: My presentation deals with the relationship between Compliance Law and Arbitration, particularly International Arbitration. It is built around 12 successive points. The work I have carried out on these various points is associated with it. It precedes the answers I shall give to the questions put by the members of the working group and the ensuing discussion.

1. stagnation in the relationship between Arbitration and Compliance Law, due to continuing misunderstandings about Compliance

2. progress towards a better understanding of Compliance and the appropriateness of the arbitrator's role within Compliance Law

3. prospects for the growing relationship between Compliance Law and Arbitration, particularly with regard to the value chains built up by international companies

4. educational issues

5. time required to build a "culture of place" in this matter

6. "Doctrinal" difficulties

7. benefit from the production of a "doctrine of place" on this subject

8. going beyond the continental summa divisio of Public Law and Private Law

9. practical assimilation of Regulatory Contracts in sustainable sectors and chains

10. opening up the Arbitration World to this articulation with Compliance Law

11.  Can an official legal text contribute to this?

12.  example of the guiding principles of the French Code of Civil Procedure.

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, The role of will in the Compliance Obligation: Obligation upon Obligation is valid and useful, Working Paper, June 2023.

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🎤  This working paper was originally drawn up as a basis for the talk, Obligation on Obligation is worth, on the first day of the conference I co-organised:🧮Compliance : Obligation, devoir, pouvoir, culture (Compliance: Obligation, duty, power, culture), on 13 June 2023.

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It was subsequently used as the basis for a forthcoming article:

📝La part de la volonté dans l’obligation de compliance : Obligation sur Obligation vaut".

in📕L'obligation de compliance, in the collection 📚Régulations & Compliance

📝The role of will in the Compliance Obligation: Obligation upon Obligation is valid and useful,

in📘Compliance Obligation, in the collection 📚Compliance & Regulation

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► Summary of this Working Paper: The demonstration of the part played by the entreprises' Will in the Compliance Obligation incumbent on them is carried out in 3 stages.

The first stage of the demonstration consists in finding the part played by the free will of companies in their Compliance Obligation by putting an end to two confusions: the first which, within the Law of Contract and Tort itself but also within Compliance Law, splits and confuses "free will" and "consent", which would no longer require freely expressed acceptance; the second, specific to Compliance Law, which confuses "Compliance" and "conformity", reducing the former to mechanical obedience which could exclude any free Will.

Having clarified this, the rest of the study focuses on the 2 ways in which a company subject to a Compliance Obligation by compulsory regulations expresses a part of its free Will, which the study expresses in this proposed adage: Obligation upon Obligation is valid, since the legal obligation to which the company responds by the obedience owed by all those subject to the regulations may be superimposed by its free Will, which will then oblige it.

The first case of Obligation upon Obligation, studied in a second part, concerns the means by which the compulsory Compliance Obligation is implemented, the company subject to the Monumental Goals set by the Legislator remaining free to choose the means by which the company will contribute to achieving them. Its free Will will thus be exercised over the choice and implementation of the means. This can take two legal forms: Contracts on the one hand and "Commitments" on the other.

In the third part, the second case of Obligation upon Obligation, which is more radical, is that in which, in addition to Compliance's legal compulsory Obligation, the company draws on its free Will to repeat the terms of its legal Obligation (because it is prohibited from contradicting it), a repetition which can be far-reaching, because the legal nature (and therefore the legal regime) is changed. The judgment handed down by the The Hague Court of Appeal on 12 November 2024, in the so-called Shell case, illustrates this. What is more, the company's free Will can play its part in the Compliance Obligation by increasing the legal Obligation. This is where the alliance is strongest. The interpretation of the specific and diverses obligations that result must remain that of the Monumental Goals in a teleological application that gives coherence to the whole.

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► Full Reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Compliance, Vigilance and Civil Liability: put in order and keep the sense of Reason, Working Paper, June 2024

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📝 In its French version, this Working Paper is the basis of the contribution "Compliance, Vigilance et Responsabilité civile : mettre en l'ordre et raison garder", in 📕L'Obligation de Compliance

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► Summary of this Working Paper:  The descriptions of the Liability incurred by large companies as a result of their compliance obligations are very diverse, even contradictory, going beyond the wishes that may be expressed as to what this liability should be. The first part of this study therefore sets out the various liabilities incurred by companies, which differ in the conditions under which they are implemented and in their scope, so as not to confuse them.

Indeed, as the various laws establish specific legal compliance obligations, they give rise to liabilities of varying conditions and scope, and it is not possible to avail of the regime of one in a situation that falls within the scope of another. It is therefore necessary to review the various bodies of compliance legislation, the GDPR, the ALM-FT regulations, the French so-called Sapin 2 law, the French so-called Vigilance law , the European IA Act , the European European DGA Act, etc., to recall the inflexion that each of these bodies of legislation has made to the liability rules applied to the companies subject to them. Nevertheless, the unicity of the Compliance Obligation, overcoming this necessary diversity of situations, regulations and liability regimes,  can provide grouping lines to indicate beyond this diversity the extent of the liability incurred by companies.

Once this classification has been made, the second part of the study develops the observation that none of this can create any principle of general liability on large companies in terms of compliance, and in particular not in terms of vigilance. It is not possible to deduce a general principle of specific obligations of liability or specific obligations to reparation, for example in the area of vigilance, as the texts creating specific vigilance obligation refer to the conditions of commun Tort Law (proof damage and causality), and International Public Law does not have the force to generate a general principle binding companies in this respect.

The third part stresses that it is nevertheless always possible to invoke Tort Law, and companies cannot claim to escape this. This may involve contractual liability, a situation  becoming increasingly frequent as companies contractualise their legal compliance obligations, reproducing them but also modifying them, and as Vigilance duty is an obligation that goes beyond the specific situations covered by the regulations. 

But it is essential, and this is the subject of the fourth part, not to make companies pure and simple guarantors of the state of the world, present and future. Indeed, if we were to transform sectoral compliances into illustrations of what would then be a new general principle, but one that applied only to them, they would consequently exercise the other side of this coin, namely power over others.

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🔓read the Working Paper below⤵️