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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Moving through Time to align Compliance with the rights of the defence, Working Paper, September 2023.

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📕This working paper has been drawn up as the second part of the book Compliance et droits de la défense (Compliance and the rights of the defence), a first section summarising this book.

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📝This Working Paper was drawn up to serve as a basis for this second section, which sets out the general way in which the rights of the defence and the compliance system can be articulated, thank to this movement of moving back in time.

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► Summary of this Working Paper: The subject of Compliance & rights of the defence is difficult to pin down because it often gives rise to totally opposing presentations, which express the initial confrontation between Compliance and rights of the defence, which seems irreducible. This initial confrontation must be acknowledged, and this is even more necessary to prevent it from becoming definitive(I)

But in a society governed by the Rule of Law, the rights of the defence are central, and the hierarchy of norms dictates that they remain the privilege of all those who risk being punished in the future. Admittedly, if we look at the course of events in a linear way, the Compliance mechanisms come in Ex Ante, whereas the rights of the defence would only be activated when the repressive procedures would later come to bear on the moral or natural person. The question would therefore not even arise, or not in a central way. But this reasoning creates a false compatibility between Compliance and the rights of the defence (II.

Indeed, it is the perspective of punishment in the future that forms the basis for the attribution of rights of the defence in the present. This consideration of the future not only allows but obliges the Law to "move in time", to always think in advance about what might happen tomorrow: this is how we must think about the Compliance methods of Internal Investigation, the DPA (or in the French legal system the Convention judiciaire d'intérêt public and the French Guilty plea procedure (CRPC) (III). As soon as these Compliance Tools are being used in practice, at the time they are being used, we must already think about how their results will be used, results which they have often been used for, because the Internal Investigation is a formidable piece of Evidence for obtaining a conviction and/or a DPA, etc. : therefore, the rights of the defence must shift over time, from the future to the present of the Information collect.

Two ambiguities that affect Compliance Law itself, ambiguities which the rights of the defence help to clarify, now appear more clearly.  The first concerns the place occupied by the consent of the person who could have been protected by the rights of defence but //who exercises his/her will to renounce them (IV). Consent, in relation to the will of which it is the expression, is also linked with the future and allows Compliance once again to take precedence over the prerogatives of the individual who chooses not to benefit from it. The omnipresence of 'consent' in Compliance is enlightening here... The second ambiguity concerns the place of secrecy (V). Secrecy seems to be the prerogative of the rights of the defence. But it can also be an effective Compliance Tool when Confidentiality enables the company to detect and prevent breaches. It may even constitute the very Monumental Goal of Compliance Law. This happens when the Goal of Compliance Law, in which legal normativity is placed, becomes the protection of the individual, as is the case for personal information. That guides the European Judge, in line with the humanism that underpins European Compliance Law, in finding the right balance, this protection and effectiveness, depending on whether the information must be given or must be not.

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🔓read the Working Paper developments below ⤵️

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Place and rôle of Companies in the Creation and Effectiveness of Compliance Law in situation of crisis", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Monumental Goals, series "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, 2023, p.

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► Article Summary:  This article has a very topic: the place of private Companies, regarding the chapter's issue: "the ordeal of a crisis". The crisis constitutes a "test", that is to say, it brings evidence. Let us take it as such.

Indeed, during the health crisis, Companies have helped the Public Authorities to resist the shock, to endure and to get out of the Crisis. They did so by force, but they also took initiatives in this direction. From this too, we must learn lessons for the next crisis that will come. It is possible that this has already started in the form of another global and systemic crisis: the environmental crisis. In view of what we have been able to observe and the evolution of the Law, of the standards adopted by the Authorities but also by the new case law, what can we expect from Companies in the face of this next Crisis, willingly and strength?

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🚧Read the bilingual Working Paper, with more developments, technical references, and hypertext links.

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📘go to the general presentation of the book, Compliance Monumental Goals, in which this article is published

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► read the presentations of the other Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's contributions in this book: 

📝Compliance Monumental Goals, beating heart of Compliance Law, 

📝Definition of Principe of Proportionality and Definition of Compliance Law,

📝 Assessment of Whistleblowing and the duty of Vigilance

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► Full Reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., Chair for "The temporal dimension: Imminence and Intertemporally", in Climate Change Cases before National and International Courts Cross-fertilization and Convergence", November 27, 2021, Paris. 

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read the program

Summary of the panel presentation: The specific topic of our panel is the “temporal dimension” of the judicial cases of Climate change.

We shall listen to two great experts on this topic, which is Time.

Listening the other previous speakers, I understand how this topic is important, because Climate Change requires an immediate action and it create a political issue, because everyone comes before courts.

A basis and fundamental problem, because the times are not adjusted. 

let's come back to basic notions, to have three times : “past, present, future”.

The issue of Climate Change is in the Future, the necessity of Action is in the Present and the basis temporal question is to know if Courts are the bodies adequate to responde ; maybe it is inevitable that Judge must be recreate their office because the time of the classical judicial office is the Past.

Immediately, this simple et huge problem appears : in a classical repartition, the judge is the legal character to intervenir for the Past, the present (maybe is for you and me), and the future is the time for the State, and more precisely for the Parliament.

But the climate change is a huge topic, not in the past, not in the present, but in the future.

Therefore a gap exists between the time of the topic and the time of the court before the case is explained for obtaining a solution : how to give a good answer ? Judge maybe must travel in time, from past to future …. Maybe, he must, but might he?

Classically, the judge can anticipate a very next future, but not the more distant and systemic future. Climate change belongs to the second one.

This is why the title of this panel is non only about the necessity to take in consideration the “imminence” but also the “intertemporally” : maybe court are the sole able to create this intertemporality between Past and Future, and by this way to obtain from States and companies to do something immediately !

By two legal ways. 

Courts can stay in Past, supervising States, if they dispose of effective legal decisions taken by States in the past about Climate Change (essentially Paris Agreement, for instance transposed in the French legal system by a formal law). This is why an efficient judicial solution would be the possibility for the courts to oblige State to implement their more or less committment they had taken in the past for the future (as the Conseil d’Etat did in the Commune de Grande-Synthe Cas Law).

Even for that, the courts must adopt a creative notion of what is a commitment from a State through a Law... ; as they must do about private companies comitment (in their codes of conduct or soft law of corporate social responsability). 

But what to do if States didn’t take such commitment ?

Some can allege Courts are not Parliaments and are not legitimate to rule for the future … It is a political issue, a very classical one but very accurate for Climate change (where States and companies are face to courts...) and maybe  And as our colleague said, judicial system is quite technically weak to concretize human rights.

Therefore, the second way, more innovative, est the new use of Tort Law : no more a liability Ex Post, but a responsibility Ex Ante. In every legal system, even in Civil Law systems, Tort Law is conceived by courts (for instance in French Law). 

If the new reasoning is conveived in Ex Ante, Tort Law must be a set of legal tools to reach the monumental tools to reach the "Monumental Goal" (being by nature future) which is the Climate Change stopping. 

In this teleological reasoning, the admissibility and the choice remedies, must be adapted to obtain what is central : the effectivity and the efficiencicy. 

In this sens, the judgement between two parties (which was an Ex Post act) may be conceived as an systemic efficient action (which was an Ex Ante act), because it must be. 

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Oublions un instant l'objet même de l'arrêt AZF et limitons la lecture à la question procédurale tranchée par l'arrêt rendu par la chambre criminelle de la Cour de cassation le 13 janvier 2015.

Celui-ci est très remarquable et mérite pleine approbation en ce qu'il affirme l'obligation des juges de respecter l'impartialité de l'institution juridictionnelle, mise à mal si les personnes qui ont à faire à elle peuvent établir un "doute objectif" concernant l'impartialité d'un juge.

A travers cette affirmation, c'est un jeu de présomptions, la principale étant la présomption de l'impartialité du juge, que la Cour de cassation établit, mettant en juste mesure les charges et les objets de preuve en la matière.

Lire ci-dessous un commentaire développé de l'arrêt.

Référence : TGI Paris,  5 novembre 1997,  D.1998, p.9 s., obs. M.-A. Frison-Roche.

Lire le commentaire.