Food for thoughts

► Référence complète : M. M. Mohamed Salah, "Conclusions", in J. Andriantsimbazovina (dir.), Puissances privées et droits de l'Homme. Essai d'analyse juridique, Mare Martin, coll. "Horizons européens", 2024, pp. 297-314

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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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► Référence complète : J.-Fr. Bohnert, "Les conditions de réussite de l'enquête interne dans les rapports entre le parquet national financier et l’entreprise mise en cause – l’enquête interne au soutien de la défense de l’entreprise", in M.-A. Frison-Roche et M. Boissavy (dir.), Compliance et droits de la défense. Enquête interne – CJIP – CRPC, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", à paraître.

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Compliance et droits de la défense - Enquête interne, CIIP, CRPC, dans lequel cet article est publié

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : Dans une présentation très proche des lignes directrices du Parquet national financier (PNF) de 2023 et du droit souple produit avec l'Agence française anticorruption (AFA), l'auteur expose la façon dont l'entreprise doit dans un climat de confiance et de collaboration. Il s'agit pour l'entreprise de rechercher objectivement ce qui pourrait engager sa responsabilité pénale d'une façon transparente et loyale en gardant à l'esprit la collaboration possible dans la perspective d'une CJIP avec le PNF et la valorisation que celui-ci fait des diligences de l'entreprise dans la menée d'une enquête interne, de la même façon que des attitudes contraires sont logiquement considérés comme des éléments inverses dans le calcul.

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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: E. Maclouf, "Entités industrielles et Obligation de compliance" ("Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2025, to be published

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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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► Summary of this article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : This article looks at the topic Industrial Entities and Compliance Obligation from the perspective of Management Science and sets out to resolve the paradox of industrial organisations expressing the ambition of progress for the benefit of people, a humanist ambition that is contradicted by the effects produced by this industrialisation itself, which are harmful to that same humanity. The Compliance Obligation, insofar as it is based on the Monumental Goals and is anchored in Industrial Organisations, aims to resolve this paradox.

The science of human organisations aims to allocate nature's scarce resources as efficiently as possible by getting individuals to cooperate, this engineering producing natural, industrial and social disasters, which are themselves more or less anticipated. The Compliance Obligation holds out the hope of better preventing them (Negative Monumental Goal) and managing them, or even improving people's lives (Positive Monumental Goal) by going beyond traditional disciplines and developing Ex Ante. However, Industrial Organisations may also reject the weight of the constraints that this creates for them, calling for deregulation instead. The debate is currently open.

Furthermore, by moving from the mechanical logic of conformity to the dynamic logic of the Compliance Obligation, companies find themselves in a situation of systemic uncertainty and must decide on the strategy to be implemented, resulting in a managerialisation of the Law  and implying many new decisions to be taken. The notion of "project" is therefore back at the heart of Industrial Organisations, and more specifically that of "Humanist Project", as embodied by the Compliance Obligation, in a new Organisation where everyone plays their part in the Value Chain.

The author draws on the work of Raymond Aron and the Rueff-Armand report to show that the dynamism and strength of Industrial Organisation can support a Humanist Project that is politically developed and fits in with the Economic Rationality of Industrial Organisations. This is all the more necessary as this Regulatory Framework cannot come from the sum of individual actions alone (employees, consumers, investors), as the interests of the company, of the sector, of society, of nature cannot be served by this addition alone, and the claim that the whole is self-regulated by the expression of a single one of these players (who are themselves both inside and outside the industrial organisation) is unsustainable.

The Author shows that new entities are therefore being created to regulate Industrial Entities in the public interest through the Compliance Obligation, which inserts an Obligation into the Industrial Organisation modifying its project: the French so-called "Sapin 2" law is a perfect example of this, encouraging appropriate strategic responses from Industrial Organisations, which have modified their managerial procedures to integrate new strategic projects and involve stakeholders.

Finally, because the Compliance Obligation is anchored in Monumental Goals, it can be the basis of the Company's Project and the Players' Project of the players, which leads us to return to the basis of the Organisations Theory, which entrusts to the corporate bodies the power and the mission of defining such a project through corporate deliberations which will then be, in the aforementioned approach of Industrial Rationality, broken down into Objectives and Plans. This is a reminder that Profit is not a Company's Goal: it is the sine qua non of its survival, which is different. A Rational Organisation determines its Project and for ensuring it,  to achieve it, it must not run the risk of going bankrupt. The Compliance Obligation is developing  between this difference and the link between the Project and this necessity to have some profit which is just a Condition. Furthermore, in order to establish this project, the organisation must resolve oppositions (conflictuality) through the complex interplay of players (Jean-Pierre Dupuy).

Industrial organisations must respond to the Compliance Obligation. In particular, they do this by developing norms, or by contributing to the development of public norms, and by themselves expressly aiming Goals such as the fight against suffering in the workplace or equality between men and women as falling within the scope of the Compliance Obligation. This framing work is an essential part of the organisation's strategy, and environmental concerns can thus be integrated to a greater or lesser extent into this or that perspective. All this goes beyond the mere logic of conformity.

The Compliance Obligation thus enables the production of what the Author calls "adaptive responses by individuals in the face of Systemic Crises and their causes", countering the Anomie which is also a monumental problem in today's society, which has lost its bearings and is suffering from Uncertainty. This Compliance Obligation enables Industrial Entities to integrate into Society, if necessary by coercion, by becoming the vectors of human rights and social and environmental expectations. But the success of this Compliance Obligation presupposes a certain appropriation of the Goals by the scales companies, which taints the Compliance Obligation itself with Uncertainty.

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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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The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is the UK's communications regulator.

This independent regulator is competent both for television, radio and television services, but also for the post office.

In addition, there are very diverse missions, such as not only the allocation of licenses but also data protection or public policies of diversity and equality.

We can consider that these are the broadest competences that can be conferred on a regulator with regard to "communication" activities!footnote-767.

The procedural guarantees from which the person benefits are mainly the right of action, the rights of defense and the benefit of the adversarial principle.

While the rights of the defense are subjective rights which are advantages given to the person at risk of having his situation affected by the decision that the body which is formally or functionally legally qualified as a "tribunal", may take, the adversarial principle is rather a principle of organization of the procedure, from which the person can benefit.

This principle, as the term indicates, is - as are the rights of the defense - of such a nature as to generate all the technical mechanisms which serve it, including in the silence of the texts, imply a broad interpretation of these.

The adversarial principle implies that the debate between all the arguments, in particular all the possible interpretations, is possible. It is exceptionally and justified, for example because of urgency or a justified requirement of secrecy (professional secrecy, secrecy of private life, industrial secrecy, defense secrecy, etc.) that the adversarial mechanism is ruled out. , sometimes only for a time (technique of deferred litigation by the admission of the procedure on request).

This participation in the debate must be fully possible for the debater, in particular access to the file, knowledge of the existence of the instance, the intelligibility of the terms of the debate, not only the facts, but also the language (translator, lawyer , intelligibility of the subject), but still discussion on the applicable legal rules). So when the court automatically comes under the rules of Law, it must submit them to adversarial debate before possibly applying them.

The application of the adversarial principle often crosses the rights of the defense, but in that it is linked to the notion of debate, it develops all the more as the procedure is of the adversarial type.

Paradoxically, the notion of conflict of interest seems to be at the center of Economic Law only recently in Economic Law, in both Corporate and Public Law. This is due to the philosophy which animates these two branches of Law, very different for each, and which has changed in each.

In fact, and in the first place in Public Law, in the Continental legal systems and especially in French legal tradition, on the side of the State, the one who serves it, by a sort of natural effect,, makes the general interest incarnated by the State pass before its personal interest. There is an opposition of interests, namely the personal interest of this public official who would like to work less and earn more, and the common interest of the population, who would like to pay less taxes and for example benefit trains that always arrive on time and the general interest which would be for example the construction of a European rail network.

But this conflict would be resolved "naturally" because the public official, having "a sense of the general interest" and being animated by the "sense of public service", sacrifices himself to serve the general interes. He stays late at his office and gets the trains on time. This theory of public service was the inheritance of royalty, a system in which the King is at the service of the People, like the aristocracy is in the "service of the King." There could therefore be no conflict of interest, neither in the administration nor in the public enterprises, nor to observe, manage or dissolve. The question does not arise ...

Let us now take the side of the companies, seen by the Company Law. In the classical conception of corporate governance, corporate officers are necessarily shareholders of the company and the profits are mandatorily distributed among all partners: the partnership agreement is a "contract of common interest". Thus, the corporate officer works in the knowledge that the fruits of his efforts will come back to him through the profits he will receive as a partner. Whatever its egoism - and even the agent must be, this mechanism produces the satisfaction of all the other partners who mechanically will also receive the profits. Selfishness is indeed the motor of the system, as in the classical theory of Market and Competition. Thus, in the corporate mechanism, there is never a conflict of interest since the corporate officer is obligatorily associated: he will always work in the interest of the partners since in this he works for himself. As Company Law posits that the loss of the company will also be incurred and suffered by all partners, he will also avoid this prospect. Again, there is no need for any control. The question of a conflict of interest between the mandatary and those who conferred this function does not structurally arise...

These two representations both proved inaccurate. They were based on quite different philosophies - the public official being supposed to have exceeded his own interest, the corporate officer being supposed to serve the common interest or the social interest by concern for his own interest - but this was by  a unique reasoning that these two representations were defeated.

Let us take the first on Public Law: the "sense of the State" is not so common in the administration and the public enterprises, that the people who work there sacrifice themselves for the social group. They are human beings like the others. Researchers in economics and finance, through this elementary reflection of suspicion, have shattered these political and legal representations. In particular, it has been observed that the institutional lifestyle of public enterprises, very close to the government and their leaders, is often not very justified, whereas it is paid by the taxpayer, that is, by the social group which they claimed to serve. Europe, by affirming in the Treaty of Rome the principle of "neutrality of the capital of enterprises", that is to say, indifference to the fact that the enterprise has as its shareholder a private person or a public person, validated this absence of exceeding of his particular interest by the servant of the State, become simple economic agent. This made it possible to reach the conclusion made for Company Law.

Disillusionment was of the same magnitude. It has been observed that the corporate officer, ordinary human being, is not devoted to the company and does not have the only benefit of the profits he will later receive as a partner. He sometimes gets very little, so he can receive very many advantages (financial, pecuniary or in kind, direct or indirect). The other shareholders see their profits decrease accordingly. They are thus in a conflict of interest. Moreover, the corporate officer was elected by the shareholders' meeting, that is to say, in practice, the majority shareholder or the "controlling" shareholder (controlling shareholder) and not by all. He may not even be associated (but a "senior officer").

The very fact that the situation is no longer qualified by lawyers, through the qualifications of classical Company Law, still borrowing from the Civil Contract Law, the qualifications coming more from financial theories, borrowing from the theory of the agency, adically changed the perspective. The assumptions have been reversed: by the same "nature effect", the conflict of interest has been disclosed as structurally existing between the manager and the minority shareholder. Since the minority shareholder does not have the de facto power to dismiss the corporate officer since he does not have the majority of the voting rights, the question does not even arise whether the manager has or has not a corporate status: the minority shareholder has only the power to sell his securities, if the management of the manager is unfavorable (right of exit) or the power to say, protest and make known. This presupposes that he is informed, which will put at the center of a new Company Law information, even transparency.

Thus, this conflict of interests finds a solution in the actual transfer of securities, beyond the legal principle of negotiability. For this reason, if the company is listed, the conflict of interest is translated dialectically into a relationship between the corporate officer and the financial market which, by its liquidity, allows the agent to be sanctioned, and also provides information, Financial market and the minority shareholder becoming identical. The manager could certainly have a "sense of social interest", a sort of equivalent of the state's sense for a civil servant, if he had an ethics, which would feed a self-regulation. Few people believe in the reality of this hypothesis. By pragmatism, it is more readily accepted that the manager will prefer his interest to that of the minority shareholder. Indeed, he can serve his personal interest rather than the interest for which a power has been given to him through the informational rent he has, and the asymmetry of information he enjoys. All the regulation will intervene to reduce this asymmetry of information and to equip the minority shareholder thanks to the regulator who defends the interests of the market against the corporate officers, if necessary through the criminal law. But the belief in managerial volunteerism has recently taken on a new dimension with corporate social responsability, the social responsibility of the company where managers express their concern for others.

The identification of conflicts of interests, their prevention and their management are transforming Financial Regulatory Law and then the Common Law of Regulation, because today it is no longer believed a priori that people exceed their personal interest to serve the interest of others. It is perhaps to regain trust and even sympathy that companies have invested in social responsibility. The latter is elaborated by rules which are at first very flexible but which can also express a concern for the general interest. In this, it can meet Compliance Law and express on behalf of the companies a concern for the general interest, if the companies provide proof of this concern.

To take an example of a conflict of interest that resulted in substantial legal changes, the potentially dangerous situation of credit rating agencies has been pointed out when they are both paid by banks, advising them and designing products, While being the source of the ratings, the main indices from which the investments are made. Banks being the first financial intermediaries, these conflicts of interest are therefore systematically dangerous. That is why in Europe ESMA exercises control over these rating agencies.

The identification of conflicts of interest, which most often involves changing the way we look at a situation - which seemed normal until the point of view changes - the moral and legal perspective being different, Trust one has in this person or another one modifying this look, is today what moves the most in Regulation Law.
This is true of Public and Corporate Law, which are extended by the Regulation Law, here itself transformed by Compliance Law, notably by the launchers of alerts. But this is also true that all political institutions and elected officials.

For a rule emerges: the more central the notion of conflict of interest becomes, the more it must be realized that Trust is no longer given a priori, either to a person, to a function, to a mechanism, to a system. Trust is no longer given only a posteriori in procedures that burden the action, where one must give to see continuously that one has deserved this trust.

Référence complète : Boy, , "Réflexion sur le "droit de la régulation". A propos du texte de Marie-Anne Frison-Roche",  D., chron., 2001, p.3031 et s.

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► Référence complète : B. Lecourt, "Des obligations d'information en matière de droit de l'homme et d'environnement au devoir de vigilance", in B. Lecourt (dir.) Lebvre - Dalloz, coll. "Thèmes et commentaires", 2025, pp

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📗lire une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Le devoir européen de vigilance, dans lequel cet article est publié

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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: Delalieu, G., La loi sur le devoir de vigilance des sociétés multinationales : parcours d’une loi improbable, Droit et Société, 2020/3, n°106, p.649-665.

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►English Summary of the Article (done by the Author): (Corporate Duty of Vigilance in France: The Path of an Improbable Statute). This article offers an analysis of the resistance encountered by defenders (NGOs and trade unions) of the French Law on Corporate Duty of Vigilance. These actors sought to behave as institutional entrepreneurs deploying intense advocacy and lobbying efforts to successfully have this bill tabled, examined, and ultimately passed by the French government. Considering this case, the concept of “institutional entrepreneurship” is discussed and then relativized using Machiavelli’s notion of “Fortuna,” to describe the “improbable” adoption of this statute. The results tend to put into perspective the importance that individual actors, including collective ones, can have in the explanation of institutional change, in favor of a multilevel analysis of change (micro, meso, macro).

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Référence complète : Queinnec, Y et Constantin, A., Devoir de vigilance. Les organes de gouvernance des entreprises en première ligne, in Le Big Bang des devoirs de vigilance ESG : les nouveaux enjeux de RSE et de droit de l'homme, doss., Revue Lamy Droit des Affaires, n°104, mai 2015, p.68-74.

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► Full Reference: R. Sève, "Compliance Obligation and changes in Sovereignty and Citizenship", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): 

The contribution describes "les changements de philosophie du droit que la notion de compliance peut impliquer par rapport à la représentation moderne de l’Etat assurant l’effectivité des lois issues de la volonté générale, dans le respect des libertés fondamentales qui constituent l’essence du sujet de droit." ("the changes in legal philosophy that the notion of Compliance may imply in relation to the modern representation of the State ensuring the effectiveness of laws resulting from the general will, while respecting the fundamental freedoms that constitute the essence of the subject of law").

The contributor believes that the definition of Compliance is due to authors who « jouer un rôle d’éclairage et de structuration d’un vaste ensemble d’idées et de phénomènes précédemment envisagés de manière disjointe.  Pour ce qui nous occupe, c’est sûrement le cas de la théorie de la compliance, développée en France par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche dans la lignée de grands économistes (Jean-Jacques Laffont, Jean Tirole) et dont la première forme résidait dans les travaux bien connus de la Professeure sur le droit de la régulation. » ( "play a role in illuminating and structuring a vast set of ideas and phenomena previously considered in a disjointed manner.  For our purposes, this is certainly the case with the theory of Compliance, developed in France by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche in the tradition of great economists (Jean-Jacques Laffont, Jean Tirole) and whose first form was in her well-known work on Regulatory Law").

Drawing on the Principles of the Law of the American Law Institute, which considers compliance to be a "set of rules, principles, controls, authorities, offices and practices designed to ensure that an organisation conforms to external and internal norms", he stresses that Compliance thus appears to be a neutral mechanism aimed at efficiency through a move towards Ex Ante. But he stresses that the novelty lies in the fact that it is aimed 'only' at future events, by 'refounding' and 'monumentalising' the matter through the notion of 'monumental goals' conceived by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, giving rise to a new jus comune. Thus, "la compliance c’est l’idée permanente du droit appliquée à de nouveaux contextes et défis." ("Compliance is the permanent idea of Law applied to new contexts and challenges"). 

So it's not a question of making budget savings, but rather of continuing to apply the philosophy of the Social Contract to complex issues, particularly environmental issues. 

This renews the place occupied by the Citizen, who appears not only as an individual, as in the classical Greek concept and that of Rousseau, but also through entities such as NGOs, while large companies, because they alone have the means to pursue the Compliance Monumental Goals, would be like "super-citizens", something that the digital space is beginning to experience, at the risk of the individuals themselves disappearing as a result of "surveillance capitalism". But in the same way that thinking about the Social Contract is linked to thinking about capitalism, Compliance is part of a logical historical extension, without any fundamental break: "C’est le développement et la complexité du capitalisme qui forcent à introduire dans les entités privées des mécanismes procéduraux d’essence bureaucratique, pour discipliner les salariés, contenir les critiques internes et externes, soutenir les managers en place" ("It is the development and complexity of capitalism that forces us to introduce procedural mechanisms of a bureaucratic nature into private entities, in order to discipline employees, contain internal and external criticism, and support the managers in place") by forcing them to justify remuneration, benefits, and so on.

Furthermore, in the words of the author, "Avec les buts monumentaux, - la prise en compte des effets lointains, diffus, agrégés par delà les frontières, de l’intérêt des générations futures, de tous les êtres vivants - ,  on passe, pour ainsi dire, à une dimension industrielle de l’éthique, que seuls de vastes systèmes de traitement de l’information permettent d’envisager effectivement." ("With the Monumental Goals - taking into account the distant, diffuse effects, aggregated across borders, the interests of future generations, of all living beings - we move, so to speak, to an industrial dimension of ethics, which only vast information processing systems can effectively envisage").

This is how we can find a division between artificial intelligence and human beings in organisations, particularly companies, or in decision-making processes.

In the same way, individual freedom does not disappear with Compliance, because it is precisely one of its monumental goals to enable individuals to make choices in a complex environment, particularly in the digital space where the democratic system is now at stake, while technical mechanisms such as early warning will revive the right to civil disobedience, invalidating the complaint of "surveillance capitalism".

The author concludes that the stakes are so high that Compliance, which has already overcome the distinctions between Private and Public Law and between national and international law, must also overcome the distinction between Information and secrecy, particularly in view of cyber-risks, which requires the State to develop and implement non-public Compliance strategies to safeguard the future.

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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: Segonds, M., Compliance, Proportionality and Sanction. The example of the sanctions taken by the French Anticorruption Agency, in Frison-Roche, M.-A. (ed.),Compliance Monumental Goals, series "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, to be published.

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► Article Summary:  Before devoting the developments of his article to the sole perspective of sanctions imposed under "Anti-corruption Compliance", the author recalls in a more general way that, as is the sanction, Compliance is in essence proportional: Proportionality is inherent to Compliance as it conditions any sanction, including a sanction imposed under Compliance.

This link between Proportionality and Compliance has been underlined by the French Anti-Corruption Agency (Agence française anticorruption - AFA) with regard to risk mapping, which must measure risks to arrive at effective and proportional measures. This same spirit of proportionality animates the recommendations of the AFA which are intended to apply according to the size of the company and its concrete organisation. It governs sanctions even more, in that punitive sanctions refer on one hand to Criminal Law, centered on the requirement of proportionality. Punitive sanctions It governs sanctions even more, in that punitive sanctions refer on the other hand to the disciplinary power of the manager who, from other sources of law, must integrate the legal requirement of proportionality when he/she applies external and internal compliance norms.

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

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► Full Reference: M. Torre-Schaub, "Environmental and Climate Compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): 

The author starts from the fact that Compliance Law, in that it is not limited to conformity process, and Environmental Law are complementary, both based above all on the prevention of risks and harmful behaviour, environmental crises and the right to a healthy environment involving the strengthening of Environmental Vigilance. It is all the more important to do this because definitions remain imprecise, not least those of Environment and Climate, which are diffuse concepts.

Firstly, the contribution sets out the purpose of Environmental Compliance, which is to ensure that companies are vigilant with regard to all kinds of risks: they put in place and follow a series of processes to obtain "progress" in accordance with a standard of "reasonable vigilance". This requires them to go beyond mere conformity and encourages them to develop their own soft law tools within a framework of information and transparency, so that the climate system itself benefits in accordance with its own objectives.

Then the author stresses the preventive nature of Environmental Vigilance mechanisms, which go beyond providing Information to managing risks upstream, in particular through the vigilance plan, which may be unified or drawn up risk by risk, and which must be adapted to the company, particularly in the risk mapping drawn up, with assessment being carried out on a case-by-case basis.

Lastly, in the light of recent French case law, the author describes the implementation of the system, which may bring the parties before the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris (Paris Court of First Instance) and then the specialised chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal. The author believes that judges must clarify the obligation of Environmental Vigilance so that companies can adjust to it, and these 2 courts are in the process of doing so.

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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 complète : Agence française anticorruption (AFA), Guide du contrôle comptable anticorruption, 2022. 

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► Lire le guide

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📧 Lire le commentaire fait par Marie-Anne Frison-Roche de ce guide. 

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Référence complète : Terré, F., Concurrence et proportionnalité, in Parléani, G. (coord.), Mélanges en l'honneur du Professeur Claude Lucas de Leyssac, LexisNexis, novembre 2018, pp.467-471. 

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Lire une présentation générale des Mélanges dans lesquels l'article a été publié.

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► Référence complète : S. Mouton, "Dimensions constitutionnelles de l'Obligation de Compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), L'obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", 2024

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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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The term "breach" is new in Law. In the legal order, the term "fault" is that which is retained to designate the behavior of a person who deviates from a rule and must be sanctioned, because by this act he has manifested a fraudulent intention which may is reproached to him. But the legal notion of fault, which was central in the classic Law of civil liability and was essential in criminal liability Law has the major drawback of calling for proof: that of the intention to "do wrong". This seems all the less adequate when it comes to assessing the behavior of organizations, such as companies, whose behavior and power must be controlled more than the faulty behavior of their leaders sanctioned.

This is why both to lighten the burden of proof concerning natural persons, in particular those with the power and the function of deciding for others (managers, "senior executives") and to better correspond to the distribution of the power of The action, which is now held by organizations, in particular companies, are "failures" and no longer faults or negligence which constitute the triggering events triggering their liability or justifying repression.

It is more particularly an administrative repression, the end of which is not to sanction misconduct but to effectively protect the regulated sectors. The sanction for breaches is therefore both easier, because it is always necessary to prove the intention, and more violent, because the sanctions attached can relate to a share of the profits withdrawn, to a share of the turnover. business of the operator or can take the form of commitments by the operator for the future, a very restrictive and new form of sanction that the compliance technique has inserted into the law.

Thus the breach can be defined as a behavior, even an organization which is away from the behavior or the situation that the author of a text has posed as being that which he posits as adequate. This definition, which is at the same time broad, abstract, teleological and prescription, which makes it possible to apprehend not only behaviors but also structures, makes the sanction of breaches a daily tool of Regulatory Law.

► Full Reference: D. Gutmann, "Tax Law and Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, to be published

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

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): The author takes up the hypothesis of a Compliance Law defined by its Monumental Goals, the realisation of which is entrusted to "crucial operators" and confronts it with Tax Law. The link is particularly effective since these operators possess what governments need in this area: relevant Information.

Going further, Compliance Law can give rise to two types of obligations on the part of these operators, either towards others operators who need to be monitored, corrected or denounced, or towards themselves, when they need to make amends.

In the first part of this contribution, the author shows that Compliance Obligation reproduces the mechanism of a Tax Law which, for large companies, is embroiled in a process of increasing Globalisation. It enables Governments to aspire to the "Monumental Goals" of combating tax optimisation and impoverishing governments, victims of the erosion of the tax base, in the face of the strategies of companies that are more powerful than they are themselves, by using this very power of firms to turn it against them. Companies become the willing or de facto allies of governments, particularly when it comes to recovering tax debts, or assist them in their stated ambition to achieve social justice.  In this way, the State "manages" Tax Law by cooperating with companies.

In the second part, the author outlines the contours of this business Compliance Obligation, which is no longer simply a matter of paying tax. Beyond this financial obligation, it is more a question of mastering Information, particularly when multinational companies are subject to specific tax reporting obligations and are required to reveal their tax strategy, presumed to be transparent and coherent within the group : this legal presumption gives rise to obligations to seek information and ensure coherence, since a single tax strategy is not self-evident in a group.

The author emphasises that companies have accepted the principles governing these new compliance obligations and are tending to transform these obligations, particularly Transparency, into a communication strategy, in line with the ESG criteria that have been developed and a desire for fruitful relations with stakeholders. Therefore the tax relations developed by major companies are being extended not only to the tax authorities, but also to NGOs, by incorporating a strong ethical dimension. This is leading to new strategies, particularly in the area of Vigilance.

The author concludes: "A n’en pas douter, l’obligation de compliance existe bel et bien en matière fiscale." ("There is no doubt that the Compliance Obligation does exist in tax matters").

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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 complète : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Mission confiée par le garde des Sceaux, Droit de la compliance et attractivité juridique , 2025-2026.

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📜lire la lettre de mission du garde des Sceaux du 5 septembre 2025 saisissant Marie-Anne Frison-Roche

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► Présentation méthodologique de la menée de cette mission : À

► Référence complète : Branellec, G. et Cadet, I., "Le devoir de vigilance des entreprises françaises : la création d’un système juridique en boucle qui dépasse l’opposition hard law et soft law", Open Edition, 2017.

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Lire l'article.

► Référence complète : S-M.. Cabon, "Théorie et pratique de la négociation dans la justice pénale", in M.-A. Frison-Roche & M. Boissavy (dir.), Compliance et Droits de la défense - Enquête interne, CIIP, CRPC, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) et Dalloz, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", à paraître.

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📕consulter une présentation générale de l'ouvrage, Compliance et Droits de la défense - Enquête interne, CIIP, CRPC, dans lequel cet article est publié

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par le Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC) : L'auteure définit la technique de "négociation" comme celle par laquelle "chaque interlocuteur va tenter de rendre compatibles par un jeu de coopération et de concessions mutuelles", ce qui va donc être utilisé dans la justice pénale française non pas tant par attraction du modèle américain, mais pour tenter de résoudre les difficultés engendrées par le flux des contentieux, le procédé s'étant élargi aux contentieux répressif, notamment devant les autorités administratives de régulation. Le principe en est donc la coopération du délinquant.

L'auteur souligne les satisfactions "pratiques" revendiqués, puisque les cas sont résolus, les sanctions sont acceptées, et les inquiétudes "théoriques", puisque des principes fondamentaux semblent écartés, comme les droits de la défense, l'affirmation étant faite comme quoi les avantages pratiques et le fait que rien n'oblige les entreprises à accepter les CJIP et les CRPC justifient que l'on ne s'arrête pas à ces considérations "théoriques".

L'article est donc construit sur la confrontation de "l'Utile" et du "Juste", parce que c'est ainsi que le système est présenté, l'utilité et le consentement étant notamment mis en valeur dans les lignes directrices des autorités publiques.

Face à cela, l'auteur examine la façon dont les textes continuent, ou pas, de protéger la personne qui risque d'être in fine sanctionnée, notamment dans les enquêtes et investigations, le fait qu'elle consente à renoncer à cette protection, notamment qu'elle apporte elle-même les éléments probatoires de ce qui sera la base de sa déclaration de culpabilité tandis que l'Autorité publique ne renonce pas encore au même moment à la poursuite étant problématique au regard du "Juste".

La seconde partie de l'article est donc consacrée à "l'Utile contraint à être Juste". A ce titre, l'auteur pense que l'indépendance du ministère public devrait être plus forte, à l'image de ce qu'est le Parquet européen, et le contrôle du juge judiciaire plus profond car la procédure actuelle de validation des CJIP semble régie par le principe dispositif, principe qui ne sied pas à la justice pénale.

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► Full Reference: S. Pottier, "In Favour of European Compliance, a Vehicle of Economic and Political Assertion", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Monumental Goals, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, 2023, pp. 459-468

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

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► Summary of the article (donne by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance - JoRC): Today's monumental goals, particularly environmental and climatic ones, are of a financial magnitude that we had not imagined but the essential stake is rather in the way of using these funds, that is to determine the rules which, to be effective and fair, should be global. The challenge is therefore to design these rules and organize the necessary alliance between States and companies.

It is no longer disputed today that the concern for these monumental goals and the concern for profitability of investments go hand in hand, the most conservative financiers admitting, moreover, that concern for others and for the future must be taken into account, the ESG rating and the "green bonds" expressing it.

Companies are increasingly made more responsible, in particular by the reputational pressure exerted by the request made to actively participate in the achievement of these goals, this insertion in the very heart of the management of the company showing the link between compliance and the trust of which companies need, CSR also being based on this relationship, the whole placing the company upstream, to prevent criticism, even if they are unjustified. All governance is therefore impacted by compliance requirements, in particular transparency.

Despite the global nature of the topic and the techniques, Europe has a great specificity, where its sovereignty is at stake and which Europe must defend and develop, as a tool for risk management and the development of its industry. Less mechanical than the tick the box, Europe makes the spirit of Compliance prevail, where the competitiveness of companies is deployed in a link with States to achieve substantial goals. For this, it is imperative to strengthen the European conception of compliance standards and to use the model. The European model of compliance arouses a lot of interest. The duty of vigilance is a very good example. It is of primary interest to explain it, develop it and promote it beyond Europe.

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► Référence complète : Fr. Berrod, "Introduction au DMA : un esprit pionnier de la régulation des plateformes numériques", Dalloz IP/IT, 2023, pp. 266-271

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► Résumé de l'article (fait par l'auteur) : "Le Digital Markets Act (DMA) a été proposé en même temps que son jumeau le Digital Service Act et ils ont été négociés en parallèle et stabilisés par la présidence française de l'Union européenne. Il est applicable à partir du 2 mai 2023. Sa négociation fut menée de façon remarquablement rapide (moins de seize mois pour obtenir l'accord politique sur la proposition de la Commission du 15 déc. 2020), si l'on rappelle la difficulté de ces deux textes, tant technique que juridique. Le DMA vient modifier les directives (UE) 2019/1937 et (UE) 2020/1828. Le titre technique choisi reflète l'ambition de ce texte, consacré « aux marchés contestables et équitables dans le secteur numérique ». Nous retracerons dans cette contribution les principaux éléments de compréhension du DMA.".

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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 : Lagarde, Ch., A regulatory Approch to FinTech, mai 2018. 

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Concevoir l'Obligation de Compliance : faire usage de sa position pour participer à la réalisation des Buts Monumentaux de la Compliance" ("Conceiving the Compliance Obligation: Using its Position to take part in achieving the Compliance Monumental Goals"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), L'Obligation de Compliance, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, "Régulations & Compliance" Serie, 2024, 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: Rather than getting bogged down in definitional disputes, given that Compliance Law is itself a incipient branch of Law, the idea of this contribution is to take as a starting point the different regimes of so many different compliance obligations to which laws and regulations subject large companies: sometimes they must apply them to the letter and sometimes they are only penalised in the event of fault or negligence. This brings us back to the distinction between obligations of result and obligations of means.

Although it might be risky to transpose the expression and regime of contractual obligations to legal obligations, starting from this observation in the Compliance Evidentiary System of a plurality of obligations of means and of result, depending on whether we are dealing with this or that technical compliance obligation, we must first classify them. It would appear that this plurality does not constitute a definitive obstacle to the creation 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 branch of Law 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 (efficacy) are obligations of means. This is even more the case when the aim 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, linked with these Goals. Moreover, because these structures (warning platforms, training, audits, contracts and clauses, etc.) only have meaning in order to produce effects and behaviour leading 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 aims 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 economic operator, responsible Ex Ante, should organise itself and behave.

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