Food for thoughts

► Référence complète : Rechtbank Den Haag (Tribunal de La Haye), 26 mai 2021, aff. C/09/571932 / HA ZA 19-379, Vereniging Milieudefensie et a. c/ Royal Dutch Shell PLC. 

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🏛️lire le jugement

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🏛️lire la traduction française du jugement

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► Full reference: ECHR, 3rd sect., 11 May 2021, Halet c. Luxembourg, n° 21884/18.

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► Read the judgment

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► See the judgment of the Grand chamber of the 14th February 2023 which overrules this decision.

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► Full Reference : Th. Amico, "La Compliance ou le passage de l'ex post à l'ex ante. Une révolution copernicienne pour l'avocat pénaliste ?" ("Compliance or the passage from ex post to ex ante: a Compernican revolution for the criminal lawyer?"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Les outils de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2021, p. 145-154.

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

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): After referring to various definitions of Compliance Law, the author insists on the usefulness of the criminal lawyer in that he, familiar with the Ex-Post that constitutes the sanction, can be of good advice. in the Ex-Ante in which new compliance mechanisms are being developed, such as risk mapping or third-party assessment.

Addressing the punitive dimension of Compliance Law, the author shows that the criminal lawyer therefore naturally has a place there, whether it concerns the powers exercised by an administrative authority or the criminal law itself. In that he can "anticipate criminal proceedings", the criminal lawyer is therefore best able to ensure that the company does not expose itself to them, in particular in a good mastery of internal investigations, thus ruling out the criminal risk.

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► Référence complète : H. Christodoulou, Le parquet européen : prémices d'une autorité judiciaire de l'Union européenne, préf. B. de Lamy, Dalloz, coll. "Nouvelle Bibliothèque de Thèses", vol. 201, 2021, 518 p. 

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Lire la synthèse des propositions de l'étude

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► Résumé de l'ouvrage (fait par l'auteure) : "La libre circulation des délinquants n'a jamais été accompagnée de l'ouverture des frontières aux autorités de poursuite d'Europe. Cette situation paradoxale, partiellement résolue par une coopération judiciaire étroite entre les États membres, semble insoutenable à l'aune des phénomènes criminels actuels. La mise en place d'un nouvel acteur s'est donc imposée. Concrètement, le parquet européen, en ce qu'il aurait des pouvoirs propres transcendant ceux des États membres, disposerait d'une compétence pour diriger des enquêtes et déclencher des poursuites sur le territoire de l'Union, pour lutter, au départ, contre les infractions portant atteinte aux intérêts financiers de l'Union européenne.

Après de multiples débats, le règlement lié à sa création, constituant le fruit d'un compromis délicat, a finalement été adopté le 12 octobre 2017. Dès lors, la mise en place d'une autorité de poursuite européenne ne relève plus d'un mythe, mais devient, en elle- même, une réalité empreinte de métamorphoses au sein de l'Union européenne. Cette dernière devrait influer tant sur les réactions des États membres que de l'Union elle-même, qui ne pourront rester inertes face à son apparition.

Cette imbrication de systèmes nationaux et européen a soulevé de nombreuses difficultés à la fois organiques et fonctionnelles qui ont été décryptées afin d'en comprendre les enjeux. L'étude du statut du parquet européen imposait de circonscrire corrélativement la notion d'autorité judiciaire au sein de l'Union européenne ; l'analyse de son fonctionnement supposait de déterminer les normes régissant son action et les organes de contrôle de ses prérogatives.

En définitive, cette étude invitera le lecteur à se questionner, plus largement, sur l'émergence d'une véritable justice pénale de l'Union européenne.".

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Référence complète: Frison-Roche, M.-A.,Compliance et Arbitrage : un adossement,  rapport de synthèse in Frison-Roche, M.-A. & Racine, J.-B. (dir.) Compliance et Arbitrage, Colloque coorganisé par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et le Centre de recherches sur la Justice et le Règlement des Conflits (CRJ) de l'Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), avec le soutien de la Cour Internationale d'Arbitrage, Paris, 31 mars 2021.

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🗓️ Lire le programme de ce colloque

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✏️Le rapport de synthèse a été réalisé au fur et à mesure que se déroulait le colloque : se reporter aux notes prises durant le colloque. 

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Voir le rapport de synthèse en vidéo

Voir l'intégralité du colloque en vidéo. 

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📅 Ce colloque s'insère dans le cycle de colloques 2021 organisé par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et ses partenaires autour de la Juridictionnalisation de la Compliance.

📕 Les interventions ont servi de première base à la réalisation d'un titre  dans l'ouvrage dirigé par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, dont la version française,  La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, est co-édité par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz.

📘 Elles ont été de la même façon la première base pour la version anglaise de l'ouvrage, Compliance Juridictionalisation, co-édité par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Bruylant. 

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► Full Reference: J.-B. Racine, "Compliance and arbitration. An attempt at problematisation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, coll. "Compliance & Regulation", to be published. 

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, in which this article is published

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► The summary below describes an article that follows an intervention in the scientific manifestation Compliance et Arbitrage, co-organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II). This conference was designed by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche and Jean-Baptiste Racine, scientific co-directors, and took place in Paris II University on March 31, 2021. 

In the book, the article will be published in Title II, devoted to: Compliance et Arbitrage.

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► Summary of the article: Under the consideration of the "Compliance Jurisdictionalisation", it is necessary to study in the links between Compliance and Arbitration. The arbitrator is a judge, he is even the natural judge of international trade. Arbitration is therefore naturally intended to meet compliance which transforms the action of companies in an international context. However, the links between compliance and arbitration are not obvious. It is not a question of providing firm and definitive answers, but rather, and above all, of asking questions. We are at the start of reflection on this topic, which explains why there is, for the time being, little legal literature on the subject of the relationship between Compliance and Arbitration. It doesn't mean there aren't connections.  Quite simply, these relations may not have come to light, or they are in the making. We should research  the existing or potential bridges between two worlds that have long gravitated separately: Compliance on the one hand, Arbitration on the other. The central question is: is or can the arbitrator be a compliance judge, and, if so, how?

In any event, the Arbitrator is thus in contact with matters requiring the methods, tools and logic of Compliance. In addition to the prevention and suppression of corruption, three examples can be given.

• Arbitration has been facing economic sanctions (notably embargoes) for several years. The link with Compliance is obvious, insofar as texts providing for economic sanctions are often accompanied by compliance mechanisms, as in the United States. The arbitrator is concerned as to the fate he reserves in the treatment of the dispute with the measures of economic sanctions.
• Competition Law is a branch that came into contact with Arbitration from the end of the 1980s. The arbitrability of this type of dispute is now established and arbitrators apply it regularly. At the same time, Compliance has also entered Competition Law, admittedly more strongly in the United States than in France. The existence, absence or insufficiency of a compliance program aimed at preventing violations of the competition rules are thus circumstances which may assist the arbitrator in the assessment of anti-competitive behavior.
• Environmental Law is also concerned. There is environmental Compliance, for example with regard to the French law of March 27, 2017 on the duty of vigilance. Companies are thus responsible for participating in the protection of the environment, by internalizing these concerns in their internal and external operations (in their sphere of influence). As soon as an arbitrator is in charge for settling a dispute relating to Environmental Law, the question of the relationship to Compliance, from this angle, naturally arises.

It is therefore the multiple interactions between Compliance and Arbitration, actual or potential, which are thus open.

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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► Full Reference: E. Kleiman, "The objectives of compliance confronted with the actors of arbitration", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, coll. "Compliance & Regulation", to be published. 

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, in which this article is published

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► Summary of the article (done by the Author): International arbitration, which remains the preferred method for the resolution of disputes arising from international commercial relations, has been overtaken by compliance, the manifestations of which are everywhere: arbitral institutions, arbitrators and courts exercising curial supervision of the international regularity of awards are regularly called upon to take into account rules of compliance.

Compliance has undeniably got a hold on the arbitration community.  Being operators in an unregulated activity, arbitral institutions and arbitrators must generate trust; their ability to effectively self-regulate is a prerequisite for the success of arbitration and requires transparency and exemplarity.  This self-imposed compliance is nowadays consubstantial to arbitration and is illustrated in such classic fields as prevention of conflicts of interest and control of arbitrators' availability, but also in the more recent domains of parity and diversity as well as reduction of the carbon footprint.  Moreover, compliance has caught up with the ex post control of the international regularity of arbitral awards in matters involving allegations of corruption and money laundering.  There is room for debate, particularly in France, because of the porosity of the boundaries between the methods that are specific to those mandatory rules of compliance that intend to prevent the most serious offences, and the methods that are specific to the establishment of the constituent elements of such crimes before criminal courts.  This is an important issue, especially as the increasingly imperative nature of climate change and human rights regulations will extend the scope of these overlaps between compliance methods and the control of arbitral awards.

Arbitration is also taking over compliance.  Arbitrators are called upon to rule on controversies arising from economic activities that are related to compliance: contracts relating to the implementation of preventive measures in the fields of anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and human rights as well as transactions relating to the reduction of the carbon footprint and climate change, etc.  Moreover, compliance is also an arbitrable matter and arbitrators must apply or take into consideration the observance or disregard of rules of compliance when adjudicating commercial or investment disputes.

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🦉This article is available in full text to those registered for Professor Marie-Anne Frison-Roche's courses

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Référence compléte : Cukierman, C., A. et Bonnecarrère, Ph., Rapport du Sénat, La judiciarisation de la vie publique, 2022.

Mme Cécile CUKIERMAN, Rapporteur M. Philippe BONNECARRÈRE

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Lire le Rapport. 

► Full Reference: Bundesverfassungsgericht (Deutsch Federal Constitutional Court), Order of the First Senate, March 24, 2021 (published on April 29, 2021), Nos. 1 BvR 2656/18, 1 BvR 78/20, 1 BvR 96/20

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🏛️read the decision (in English)

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🏛️read the press release (in English)

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► Référence complète : Conseil constitutionnel, 19 mars 2021, décision n° 2021-891 QPC, Association Générations futures et autres

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🏛️lire la décision 

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📧lire le commentaire de cette décision fait par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche dans la Newsletter MAFR. Regulation, Compliance, Law

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► Full Reference: D. Hever (ed.), Rapport sur les droits de la défense des personnes physiques dans l’enquête interne, March 2021.

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📓read the report (in French)

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Full reference: Tribunal administratif de Paris (Paris administrative court), 4th section, 1st Chamber, Oxfam France, Notre Affaire à tous, Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme et Greenpeace France, 3rd of February 2021, n°1904967, 1904968, 1904972, 1904976/4-1

Read the judgment (in French)

Read the press release from Tribunal administratif de Paris (in French)

►Référence complète : Quentin B. et Voiron F., La victime dans la procédure de CJIP : entre strapontin et siège éjectable, AJ pénal, 2021, p.15 et s. 

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Full reference: CJEU, 2nd of February 2021, DB v. Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob), case C‑481/19

Read the decision

Read the opinion of advocate general

Summary of the decision by CJEU: 

"Natural persons who are subject to an administrative investigation for insider dealing have the right to remain silent when their answers might establish their liability for an offence that is punishable by administrative sanctions of a criminal nature, or their criminal liability". 

To go further, read:

• Frison-Roche, M.-A., Resolve the contradiction between "incentive" and "sanction" under the fire of Compliance Law, 2021
• Frison-Roche, M.-A., Rights, primary and natural Compliance tools, 2021

► Référence complète : Gerechtshof Den Haag (Cour d'appel de La Haye), 29 janvier 2021, aff. C/09/365498, HA ZA 10-1677 et C/09/33089, HA ZA 09-0579, Milieudefensie, Fidelis Ayoro Oguru, Alali Efanga. c/ Shell Petroleum N.V.

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🏛️lire la décision (en anglais)

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►  Full Reference : Frison-Roche, M.-A., The Economic Attractiveness of Impartiality ("L'attractivité économique de l'impartialité"), in ""Economic Attractiveness, Judge Office and Impartiality. Thinking the judge Office" ("L'attractivité économique, l'office du juge et l'impartialité. Penser l'office du juge"), 

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🎥 watch the conference (in French with English subtitles)

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📝 read the colloquium program ( in French)

📝 see the general program of the cycle on the Judge Office.

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📝 read François Ancel's article of 14th of January 2021 in the Receuil Dalloz and which report this colloquium (in French) 

📝 read the Working Paper, basis of this conference.

This Working Paper is significantly different from the conference because it was conceived befor the colloquia cycle beginning. In addition, since this manifestation was a Round Table, the conference has taken more into account previous conferences and what said the other two speakers.

📊 see the slides, basis of the conference (in French)

The slides could not be shown during the conference. Orally, it was appropriate to more develop the introductory remarks for emphasizing the human and unique dimension of the Judge Office, expected in economic matters. As a result, the second part of the conference was not given orally, so slides therefore remain the only media available.

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►  Summary of the conference : To fit into the ambition of this general colloquia cycle, which is to "Think the Judge Office" and in this round table which apprehends the imperative of economic attractiveness of this office, firstly emerges the seemingly contradictory relationship between this imperative and the distance that the judge must maintain. Thus it is often asserted that the judge should be internalized at this point in the "places", - an economic concept of great scope (to which the first part of the introduction is devoted, defining the "place" at the same time as a closed and porous space and as a "systemic litigant" -, that he/she should ipso facto lose his/her distance, that is to say his/her impartiality. As places are in competition, even if weighing on one hand the effectiveness of the place, and on the other hand the impartiality of a judge who is external to this place - Judge referring to the Law , Impartiality would necessarily emerge weakened. It would then be necessary on a case-by-case basis to get the judge to give the desired concessions...

The conference aim is to take the opposite position and to state that the Place - in particular because they must be strongly distinguished from the Markets, of which they were the ancestors - require a Judge, who is at the same time "singular", that is to say with a personality, a face, opinions, and in distance so that his/her imagination does not surprise Place. Indeed, these require a human Justice, and a not mechanical one and singular judges, of whom the juge des référés or the arbitrator are the epigone, meets this need. But for reducing their "margins of discretion", how Economy qualifies the Impartiality of a person who can never be neutral, the singular Judge's Office must be inserted into mechanisms reducing these margins. In this way, the Place may reach a Judge who is always more impartial, and in doing so the Place becomes always more attractive.

To achieve this in practice, the place expresses two legitimate expectations, as a "systemic litigant", whose satisfaction increases and the singular Judge's Impartiality and increases the Attractiveness of the Place as a space. This clearly shows that the Place's Attractiveness and the Judge's Impartiality, because judges are inserted into procedures, into institutions and into a "jurisdictional family", are not only not contradictory, but are on the contrary convergent, one fueling the other.

Concretely, and judicial practice shows it, it is necessary to consolidate the particular Judge's Impartiality by inserting him/her into collective processes. As it is necessary to promote a radiance of Impartiality by strengthening the "jurisdictional family".

To consolidate the singular Judge's Impartiality  by inserting him/her into collective processes, it is necessary to admit without hesitation the subjectivity of the judge, to seek it even. The reduction of the margins of discretion, definition of impartiality, being obtained by the inclusion of the judge in a procedure of which he /her alone is the master but in which he/her is not alone. This has the technical consequence that he/her is himself/herself in an adversarial debate, not only during the proceedings, but also before (in the media), inside the judgment (and the decision of the Criminal Chamber of 25 November 2020 is a model of that) and after the judgment. By that, the Judge shows that by his/her office he/she is in the future, as climate justice will show. In addition, to limit his/her margins of discretion, the singular judge must fit into a rational principle of coherence, vertical and horizontal. Vertical coherence, because he/she integrates what it is said and the technique of the "determining opinion" is to be encouraged, the singular judge having to avoid it only if he/she has "strong reasons" to do it. This is to follow  this general rule Comply or Explain (which is the very opposite of blind obedience). Horizontal coherence, because the singular judge either sticks to what he/she said, estoppel also being a rule of logic. But above all, the institution must extract as much as possible from " institutional doctrines", by all means, of which the annual reports are an example.

To consolidate the singular Judge's Impartiality by strengthening the notion and reality of the "Jurisdictional Family", it is necessary to have of it a broader conception, which could lead to "guidelines" common to various jurisdictions, and a stronger one, by integrating those surrounding the judge to lead to judgment. In this, the procedure before the Court of Justice of the European Union, working on a common file, is a model. If this community were even stronger, the Judge Office would be even more useful than it is already in the digital space.

Thus, Judges who are always human, always diverse, always singular, who listen, consider and adjust to the situation, who within a Jurisdictional Family fit into an Institutional Doctrine which transcends and supports them but which they transform if there is a strong reason to do so, a reason always expressed said: this is the embodied Impartiality that makes an economic and financial Place attractive.

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Full reference: Loi n° 2020-1672 du 24 décembre 2020 relative au Parquet européen, à la justice environnementale et à la justice pénale spécialisée (Law of 24 December 2020 on the European Public Prosecutor's Office, environmental justice and specialized criminal justice)

Read the law (in French)

► Full Reference: Supreme Court of Norway, 22 December 2020, People v Artic Oil.

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🏛️Read the judgment (in English, unofficial translation)

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Référence complète : Dezeuze, E. , La proportionnalité des sanctions administratives en matière économique et financière, in Mélanges en l'honneur d'Alain Couret, Un juriste pluriel, Editions Francis Lefebvre et Dalloz, 2020, pp.683-701.

Consulter la présentation générale de l'ouvrage dans lequel cet article a été publié. 

► Référence complète : S. Menétrey, "Le contentieux économique", in J.-B. Racine (dir.), Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, LGDJ, coll. "Droit & Économie", 2020, pp. 173-209

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le droit économique au XXIe siècle. Notions et enjeux, dans lequel cet article est publié 

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► Résumé de l'article : 

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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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Full Reference : Frison-Roche, M.-A., Rights, primary and natural Compliance Tools, Working Paper, July  2020.

This Working paper is the basis for an article published in the collective book  Compliance Tools .

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There was a time when Regulatory techniques  were above all only calculations of the best tarifications, taken up by monopolistic companies, while Compliance techniques were only obedience to all rules governing us. All this could therefore only be business of abacus and badine, used by engineers and consisted only of mechanical reflexes of "conformity" to all kinds of rules with the corset ensuring that everyone is bent in front of them!footnote-1946. In the perspective of a Regulation and Compliance thus conceived, that is to say effective, it would not be necessary to insert prerogatives for people, since these could only be sources of inefficiency, of cost. and protest, where the order would come from figures set in advance and controlled processes.

Systems have since evolved to integrate these prerogatives of each person: rights. Is this evolution really acquired? Maybe more effectively in Regulation Law than in its extension which is Compliance Law. This may be surprising since Compliance Law, in that it extends Regulatory Law in enterprises should, on the contrary, promote rights by meeting the enterprise, which is a group of people ....!footnote-1986 . But the modern reluctance to define the enterprise (and the company) as a group of people and the preference given to a definition of the company (and the enterprise) as an "asset", a "good" of which investors would be the owners, maybe explains the sidelining of rights not only in Regulatory Law but also in Compliance Law even though it is being deployed in the space of the enterprise!footnote-1987.

In addition, if Regulation has long been the subject of a branch of Law in which rights have full place, the presentation of Compliance as "conformity", that is to say the proven assurance of obedience to all the applicable rules, leaves no space for the prerogatives of people, which appear rather as resistance to the obedience that would be expected of them. There again, the expectation of what would be a good ratio of conformity between behaviors and prescriptions would be obtained by a "design", data processing being the new form of calculation, improved by precision tools where the being human is not required!footnote-1989. His fallibility and the little confidence which one can place in him leads even to exclude the people and to conceive Compliance system between machines, not only to alert of the failures, but also to manufacture the "regulations" and to connect those. here, in a "regulatory fabric" without a jump stitch, entirely enveloping human beings!footnote-1990.

It would therefore be with regret, and probably because some constitutional jurisdictions still attach some value to fundamental rights that the systems of "conformity" of behavior to the rules make some room for the prerogatives of people, their more essential rights. It is sometimes said that this is part of the cost. It would therefore be as by "forcing" that rights would exist in Compliance systems, a kind of price that the effectiveness of Compliance must pay as a tribute to the Rule of Law principle!footnote-1991.

If in a poor definition Compliance is conceived in this only "conformity", leading to a landscape in which the behaviors of the people adjust to the rules governing the situations, Compliance being only the most "effective way" to ensure the application of the rules, in a mechanical perspective of Law, then it would effectively be necessary to reduce the prerogatives of people to a minimal part, because any "additional cost" is intended to disappear, even if it is produced here by constitutional requirements. In the looming battle between the effectiveness of the application of rules and the concern for the legal prerogatives of people who should above all obey and not claim their rights, especially their right not to obey , or their right to keep secret in Compliance techniques which is based on the centralization of information, the effectiveness of efficiency could only, by the very power of this tautology, prevail!footnote-1988... 

The defeat would not be total, however, collaboration would still be possible and active between people availing themselves of their rights and Compliance Law. Indeed, in many respects, if rights have been recognized in Compliance systems, it is not only because Compliance Law, like any branch of Law, can only be deployed with respect for fundamental rights. kept by fundamental legal texts, but also because of the effectiveness of rights as " Compliance Tools".

Indeed, because they constitute a very effective "tool" to ensure the entire functioning of a system whose goals are so difficult to achieve, because every effort must be made to achieve these goals, the public authorities not only rely on the power of crucial operators, but also distribute prerogatives to people who, thus encouraged, activate the Compliance system and participate in the achievement of the "monumental goals". Rights can prove to be the most effective tools to effectively achieve the goals set, to such an extent that they can be considered as "primary tools"  (I).

But it is necessary to be more ambitious, even to reverse the perspective. Indeed because all the Monumental Goals by which Compliance Law is defined can be reduced to the protection of people, that is to say to the effectiveness of their prerogatives, by a mirror effect between rights. given by Law to persons and the rights which constitute the very purpose of all Compliance Law, in particular the protection of all human beings, even if they are in a situation of great weakness, rights become a "natural tool" of Compliance Law (II).

Rights are the Compliance Law future. 

Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., New SEC Report to Congress about Whistleblower Program: what is common between American and European conception, Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation, 1st of December 2020

Read by freely subscribing other news of the Newsletter MAFR - Law, Compliance, Regulation

Summary of the news

Like every year since the adoption of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) and especially its Office of the Whistleblowers (OWB) handed to the Congress of the United-States a report about the success of its program concerning whistleblowers, especially estimated with the amount of financial rewards granted to them during the year. This report especially presents the amount granted to whistleblowers, the quality of the collected information and the efficacy of SEC's whistleblowers' protection process.

If Americans condition the effectiveness of whistleblowing to the remuneration of whistleblowers, Europeans oppose the "ethical whistleblower" who shares information for the love of Law to the "bounty hunter" uniquely motivated by financial reward and favor the former to the later, as it is proven in the French Law Sapin II of 2016 (which do not propose financial reward to whistleblowers) or the British Public Interest Disclosure of 1998 (which just propose a financial compensation of the whistleblower's losses linked to whistleblowing). 

However, American and European conceptions are not so far from each other. As United-States, Europe has a real care for legal effectivity, even if, because of their different legal traditions, Americans favor effectivity of rights while European favor effectivity of Law. If it places effectivity at the center of its preoccupations, Europe should conceive with less aversion the possibility to financially incite whistleblowers. Moreover, United-States and Europe share the same common willingness to protect whistleblowers and if rewarding would enable a better protection, then Europe should not reject it, as shows the recent declarations of the French Defenders of Rights. It is not excluded that both systems converges in a close future. 

Full reference: Lagarde, P., Preface of Le tournant global en droit international privé, Muir-Watt, H., Biziková, L., Brandão de Oliveira, A., Fernández Arroyo, D. P., Ma, M. (ed.), Editions Pedone, 2020, pp. 9-14

Read Paul Lagarde's preface (in French)

Full reference: Cour de Cassation, Chambre criminelle, 25th of November 2020 (18-86.955), Decision n°2333, société Iron mountain France SAS

Read the decision (in French)

Read the press release from the Cour de Cassation (in French)

​Read the explication note from the Cour de Cassation (in French)

Read Julie Gallois' comment

Summary of the decision

In this decision constituting a case law reversal, the Chambre criminelle of the Cour de Cassation decides that the firm which absorbs the one to which are imputable facts which can receive a penal qualification leading to penalties of fines has the aptitude to answer penally.

The decision precises that this reversal is applicable only to future cases, to respect the principle of predicability, except if this merging was operated only to escape from criminal responsibility of moral persons. 

This case is an example of the use of Criminal Liability Law as an incentive.