Food for thoughts

The procedural guarantees enjoyed by a person whose situation may be affected by a forthcoming judgment are mainly the right of action, the rights of defense and the benefit of the adversarial principle.

The rights of the defense have constitutional value and constitute human rights, benefiting everyone, including legal persons. The mission of positive Law is to give effect to them in good time, that is to say from the moment of the investigation or custody, which is manifested for example by the right to the assistance of a lawyer or the right to remain silent or the right to lie. Thus the rights of the defense are not intended to help the manifestation of the truth, do not help the judge or the effectiveness of repression - which is what the principle of adversarial law does - they are pure rights, subjective for the benefit of people, including even especially people who may be perfectly guilty, and seriously guilty.

The rights of the defense are therefore an anthology of prerogatives which are offered to the person implicated or likely to be or likely to be affected. It does not matter if it possibly affects the efficiency. These are human rights. This is why their most natural holder is the person prosecuted in criminal proceedings or facing a system of repression. This is why the triggering of the power of a tribunal or a judge offers them in a consubstantial way to the one who is by this sole fact - and legitimately - threatened by this legitimate violence (one of the definitions of the State ).

The rights of the defense therefore begin even before the trial because the "useful time" begins from the investigation phase, from the searches, even from the controls, and continues on the occasion of appeals against the decision adversely affecting the decision. The legal action being a means of being a party, that is to say of making arguments in its favor, and therefore of defending its case, shows that the plaintiff in the proceedings also holds legal defense rights since he is not only plaintiff in the proceedings but he also plaintiff and defendant to the allegations which are exchanged during the procedure: he alleged to the allegation of his opponent is not correct.

They take many forms and do not need to be expressly provided for in texts, since they are principled and constitutionally benefit from a broad interpretation (ad favorem interpretation). This is the right to be a party (for example the right of intervention, the right of action - which some distinguish from the rights of the defense - the right to be questioned, such as the right to be brought into question (or examination), right to be assisted by a lawyer, right to remain silent, right not to incriminate oneself, right of access to the file, right to intervene in the debate (the rights of the defense thus crossing the adversarial principle), right to appeal, etc.

It is essential to qualify an organ as a tribunal because this triggers for the benefit of the person concerned the procedural guarantees, including the rights of the defense, which on the basis of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights man was made about the Regulators yet formally organized in Independent Administrative Authorities (AAI). This contributed to the general movement of jurisdictionalization of Regulation.

► 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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Une dissertation juridique suit les règles de construction et de rédaction généralement requises pour les dissertations d'une façon générale mais présente certaines spécificités.

Le présent document a pour objet de donner quelques indications. Elles ne valent pas "règles d'or", mais un étudiant qui les suit ne peut se le voir reprocher. La correction des copies tiendra compte non seulement du fait que les étudiants ne sont pas juristes, ne sont pas habitués à faire des "dissertations juridiques", mais encore prendra en considération le présent document.

 

Impartiality is the quality, maybe the virtue, that is demanded of the judge, not only the one who is called like that but also the one who has the function to judge the others (maybe without this name).

It can not be defined as the absolute positive aptitude, namely the total absence of prejudice, the heroic aptitude for a person to totally ignore his or her personal opinions and personal history. This heroic virtue is nonsense because not only is it inaccurate, impossible but it is also not desirable because a person is not a machine. It must not be so because good justice is human justice. In this respect, impartiality refers to a philosophical conception of what is justice and what is Regulation, not machines, but systems that must keep the human person in their center (Sunstein).

Thus Impartiality is articulated with the subjective nature of the assessment not only inevitable but also desirable that the judge makes of situations. Because Law is reasonable, Impartiality is defined only negatively: the absence of bias.

Impartiality is defined first and foremost as a subjective and individual quality, namely, the prohibition on the person who makes a decision affecting the situation of others (as is the case of a judge) to a a personal interest in this situation. The constitutional prohibition of being "judge and party" is thus the expression of the principle of impartiality. This definition is in line with the otherwise general requirement of no conflict of interests.

Impartiality is defined secondly as an objective and individual quality, namely the prohibition for a person who has already known of the case to know again (because he or she has already had an opinion about it, this having constituted an objective pre-judgment).

Impartiality is defined thirdly as an objective and structural quality, which obliges the organ which takes judgments to "give to see" a structure that makes it fit for this impartiality, objective impartiality that third parties can see and which generates confidence in its ability to judge without bias. This theory of English origin has been taken up by European law in the interpretation given to the European Convention on Human Rights. The expression "apparent impartiality" has sometimes given rise to misunderstandings. Indeed, far from being less demanding (in that it is "only" to be satisfied with an appearance of impartiality and not of a true impartiality), it is rather a matter of demanding more, not only of a true impartiality, but also of an impartiality which can be seen by all. This leads in particular to the obligation of transparency, to which the institutions, notably the State, were not necessarily bound by the law.

For a long time the Regulator, in that it took the form of an Administrative Authority, was not considered a jurisdiction, it was long considered that it was not directly subject to this requirement. It is clear from the case law that the national courts now consider that the regulatory authorities are courts "in the European sense", which implies a fundamental procedural guarantee for the operators concerned

► Référence complète : A.-M. Ilcheva, "Condamnation de Shell aux Pays-Bas : la responsabilité climatique des entreprises pétrolières se dessine", D. 2021, pp. 1968-1970

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► Résumé de l'article : Après une brève description de l'affaire en cause au principal, l'auteure explicite dans un premier les fondements du jugement dit "Shell". Elle explique que l'action engagée était fondée sur le droit de la responsabilité civile délictuelle néerlandais, plus précisément le "duty of care" de l'article 6:162 du code civil néerlandais, lequel amène le juge, afin d'établir le fait générateur, à apprécier le comportement de l'entreprise défenderesse au regard du standard de comportement de la personne prudente et raisonnable. Sont également mobilisés par le juge des travaux scientifiques (rapport du GIEC), des normes de droit international (CEDH) et des normes de droit souple (Principes directeurs de l'ONU), afin de caractériser tant le fait générateur que le dommage (notamment futur). Dans un second temps, l'auteure envisage la portée de ce jugement, frappé d'appel au moment de la rédaction de son article. Elle souligne que le juge s'est appuyé sur la notion d'entreprise, permettant ainsi de contourner l'obstacle traditionnel lié à la personnalité morale, et qu'il a retenu ici une responsabilité préventive, tournée vers le futur. Elle termine en mettant en avant les conditions nécessaires pour que ce jugement soit effectif et constate que l'effort demandé à l'entreprise est plus important que celui préconisé par les rapports d'experts.

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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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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: F. Raynaud, "The administrative judge and compliance", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Jurisdictionalisation, coll. "Compliance & Regulation", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, 2023, p. 

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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:

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A monopoly refers to the power of a person to remove from a good its utility by excluding others. The monopoly refers to a situation on the market, the monopolist being the sole operator in the market. Lawyers are accustomed to the monopoly conferred by Law, for example the one that was the monopoly for the national public enterprise for electricity. In this case, what is done may be defeated, and the legislature may withdraw that privilege especially if the author of this norm is better placed in the hierarchy of norms than the previous author. For example, the European Union legislature withdrew the legal monopolies by means of directives from most of the operators holding them in the regulated sectors in order to liberalize them.

But the monopoly can have an economic source. Indeed, it may happen that a first operator constructs a structure, for example a wired telecommunications transport network. Because he is alone, agents on the market must resort to him to carry their communications, his business will be profitable. But from there, if a second operator built such an infrastructure, it would inevitably be in deficit for insufficient applicants. This is why no rational economic agent will build a second network. Thus, this network will remain unique. It is then an economically acquired monopoly that the legislative will can not change its nature. That is why it is called "natural".

Since what is can not be changed, Community law has taken note of the monopolistic nature of the majority of networks and the correlated power of their owner or manager, but has correlatively provided for their supervision by a regulator who not only Ex post to resolve possible differences between the infrastructure manager, the natural essential facility, and the one who wants to access it, but also, through an Ex ante power, to negotiate with that manager the return on his capital, his commitments investment in the network, etc., or even more directly by imposing on it the way in which it fixes access tariffs and so on.

These economically natural monopolies are therefore more powerful than legal monopolies, which States and lawyers have taken a long time to understand, but this also explains the reverse tendency of economists to write laws, The texts must handle this type of notions, its writers caring little about the political order and legal notions. The fact that the laws and regulations on regulated situations and supervised operators have long been elaborated solely from the point of view of lawyers, particularly of the public service, which was regrettable, does not justify this passage from one extreme to the other.

Legally, the State is a public law subject defined by territory, people and institutions. It acts in the international space and emits norms. Politically, it has the legitimacy required to express the will of the social body and to exercise the violence of which it deprives the other subjects of law. It is often recognizable by its power: its use of public force, its budgetary power, its jurisdictional power. These three powers, declining or being challenged by private, international and more satisfying mechanisms, some predicted the disappearance of the State, to deplore it or to dance on its corpse.

With such a background, in current theories of Regulation, primarily constructed by economic thought and at first sight one might say that the State is above all the enemy. And this for two main reasons. The first is theoretical and of a negative nature. The advocates of the theory of regulation deny the State the political qualities set out above. The State would not be a "person" but rather a group of individuals, civil servants, elected officials and other concrete human beings, expressing nothing but their particular interests, coming into conflict with other interests, and using their powers to serve the former rather than the latter as everyone else. The Regulation theory, adjoining the theory of the agency, is then aimed at controlling public agents and elected representatives in whom there is no reason to trust a priori.

The second reason is practical and positive. The State would not be a "person" but an organization. Here we find the same perspective as for the concept of enterprise, which classical lawyers conceive as a person or a group of people, while economists who conceive of the world through the market represent it as an organization. The state as an organization should be "efficient" or even "optimal". It is then the pragmatic function of the Regulation Law. When it is governed by traditional law, entangled by that it would be an almost religious illusions of the general interest, or even the social contract, it is suboptimal. The Regulation purpose is about making it more effective.

To this end, as an organization, the State is divided into independent regulatory agencies or independent administrative authorities that manage the subjects as close as possible, which is fortunate in reducing the asymmetry of information and in reviving trust in a direct link. The unitary, distant and arrogant State is abandoned for a flexible and pragmatic conception of a strategic state (without capital ...) that would finally have understood that it is an organization like any other ...

Competition law adopts this conception of the State, which it posed from the beginning that it was an economic operator like any other. This is how this conception which would be  more "neutral" of the world is often presented.

Successive crises, whether sanitary or financial, have produced a pendulum effect.

Now, the notions of general interest or common goods are credited of an autonomous value, and the necessity of surpassing immediate interests and of finding persons to bear superior interests or to take charge of the interests of others, even a non-immediate one, emerged.

Thus, the State or the public authority, reappears in the globalization. The Compliance Law or the Corporal Social Responsibility of the crucial companies are converging towards a consideration of the State, which can not be reduced to a pure and simple organization receptacle of externalities.

 

Complete reference : Archives de Philosophie du Droit (APD), Droit et économie, tome 37, ed. Sirey, 1992, 426 p. 

 

Read the table of contents.

Read the summaries of the articles in english. 

 

See the presentation of others volumes of Archives de Philosophie du Droit.

Cette bibliographie indicative vise des :

• ouvrages généraux

 

• ouvrages abordant la Régulation et la Compliance bancaire et financière à l'occasion d'un autre sujet principalement traité

 

• sites pertinents pour l'étude du Droit de la Régulation bancaire et financière

 

• ouvrages et articles portant spécifiquement sur la Régulation et la Compliance bancaire et financière

 

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

 

Lire l'article. 

► Référence complète : Association des professionnels du contentieux économique et financier (APCEF), La réparation du préjudice économique et financier par les juridictions pénales, 2019.

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Lire le rapport : 

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The notion of "Common Goods" refers to a political conception insofar as it concerns objectively commercial goods such as cultural goods or medical services, but which the community is going to demand that everyone should have access to it even though the individual does not have the ability to pay the exact price. It is then the taxpayer - present or future - or the social partners who bear the cost, or even some companies, through the corporal social social responsibility mechanism.

This protection of Common Goods can be done by the State in the name of the interest of the social group for which it is responsible and whose it expresses the will, particularly through the notion of the general interest. In this now restricted framework which is the State, this reference runs counter to the principle of competition. This is particularly clear in Europe, which is based on a Union built on an autonomous and integrated legal order in the Member States in which competition continues to have a principled value and benefits from the hierarchy of norms. The evolution of European Law has balanced the principle of competition with other principles, such as the management of systemic risks, for example health, financial or environmental risks and the creation of the banking union shows that the principle of competition is no longer an apex in the European system.

But it still remains to an economic and financial conception of Europe, definition that the definition of the Regulatory Law  when it is restricted to the management of the market failures feeds. It is conceivable that Europe will one day evolve towards a more humanistic conception of Regulatory  Law, the same one that the European States practice and defend, notably through the notion of public service. Indeed and traditionally, public services give people access to common goods, such as education, health or culture.

Paradoxically, even though Law is not set up on a global scale, it is at this level that the legal notion of "common goods" has developed.

When one refers to goods that are called "global goods", one then seeks goods that are common to humanity, such as oceans or civilizations. It is at once the heart of Nature and the heart of Human Being, which plunges into the past and the future. Paradoxically, the concept of "global goods" is still more political in substance, but because of a lack of global political governance, effective protection is difficult, as their political consecration can only be effective nationally or simply declaratory internationally. That is why this balance is at present only at national level, which refers to the difficulty of regulating globalization.

Thus, the "common goods" legally exist more under their black face: the "global evils" or "global ills" or "global failures", against which a "Global Law" actually takes place. The notion of "global evils" constitutes a sort of mirror of Common Goods. It is then observed that countries that develop legal discourse to regulate global evils and global goods thus deploy global unilateral national Law. This is the case in the United States, notably in financial regulatory Law or more broadly through the new Compliance Law, which is being born. Companies have a role to play, particularly through Codes of Conduct and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Référence complète : Gibert, M., Faire la morale aux robots. Une introduction à l'éthique des algorithmes, Flammarion, 2021, 168 p.

 

Lire le commentaire de l'ouvrage sur le site NonFiction. 

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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Retourner à la présentation générale du Cours.

Cette bibliographie générale rassemble quelques références générales, qui se superposent ou croisent les bibliographies plus spécifiques sur :

 

• Doctrine (par ordre alphabétique), la présentation distinguant quelques ouvrages généraux avant de répertorie des études pertinentes pour comprendre le "Droit commun de la Régulation"

 

• Textes de droit international, textes de systèmes juridiques étrangers,textes de l'Union européennes, textes de droit français

 

• Littérature grise

 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the independent regulatory authority in the United States that regulates at the federal level both the container and the content of telecommunications.

In this, the United States differs from the European Union, a legal space in which most often the regulatory institutions of the container and the content are distinct (for example in France ARCEP / CSA / CNIL) and in which the regulations of communications remain substantially at the level of the Member States of the Union.

Like other audiovisual regulators, it ensures pluralism of information by limiting the concentration of capital - and therefore of power - in the television and radio sector. We can thus see that the American system is not in principle different from the European system.

In addition, the FCC is characterized first of all by a very great power, imposing at the same time substantial principles on the operators, like that of the "decency", going in the name of this principle until sanctioning television channels which had let show a bare breast of a woman. The control is therefore more substantial than in Europe, this control weighing against the constitutional freedom of expression which is more powerful in the United States than in Europe. It is true that today the leading digital companies tend to formulate for us what is beautiful, good and decent, in place of public authorities.

The FCC continued to develop the major principles of the public communication system, as in 2015 that of the Open Internet (Open Internet) or to formulate the principle of "digital neutrality", adopted by a federal law, this principle having considerable economic and political implications.

But at the same time, a general mark of American law, the judge moderates this power, according to the principle of Check and Balance. Thus the Supreme Court of the United States in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation in 1978 this power of direct control of the content but also operates the control of the control.

The election in 2016 of a new president who is, among other things, totally hostile to the very idea of ​​Regulation is a test in the probative sense of the term. In January 2017, he appointed a new president of the FCC, hostile to any regulation and in particular to the principle of neutrality. The question which arises is to know if technically a regulation already established on these principles can resist, how and for how long, a political will violently and expressly contrary. And what will the judges do.

Watch the video explaining the "right to be forgotten".

The "right to be forgotten" is a recent and specifically European invention. It was designed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Google Spain judgment of May 13, 2014, so that in this world without time, in which all information is eternally stored and available that is the digital world, the individual thus exposed can be protected against this new phenomenon, since forgetting no longer exists, by Law which by its power endows it with a "right to be forgotten". In this the term Right to be forgotten is more accurate.

Because Law is made to protect human beings, the technological efficiency which created the digital world is limited by the new legal prerogative of the person to make unattainable information which concerns him when it takes on a "personal character". This was taken up by the community regulation of April 27, 2016, often called GDPR, transposed in the member states of the European Union no later than May 25, 2018.

More than in the laws which have taken up the idea of ​​protection of persons in the handling of "data" by others, expressing more the concern to protect the consumer in a market economy, it is a question of directly protecting persons. in a technological world allowing blind obedience, Europe rejecting this model because the technique of the files left him a terrible memory because of the Second World War. However, Law is the memory of peoples and expresses the “spirit” of these (Savigny).

The State's traditional view is that it serves the general interest through its public services, either directly (by its administrations, or even by public enterprises), or by delegation (eg through the concession mechanism). Public service is generally defined in a functional way, ie through public service missions that the organization must perform, such as providing public transport or caring for the population whatever (Eg in France by the public firm the SNCF). The liberalization of those public sectors, the primary reference to the market as a means of achieving the general interest, the primary reference to competition and the play of the European Law has destroyed this intimacy between public service, general interest, public enterprise and State.

Today, in a dialectical game, the Regulation keeps this concern for public service missions in balance with the competition, in a competitive context and under the control of a Regulator. The system is more complex and challenging because it creates new difficulties, such as information asymmetry or less easy integration of long-term planning, but it is better suited to an open and globalized economy.

The market is normally self-regulated. It suffers from one-time failures when economic agents engage in anti-competitive behavior, mainly the abuse of dominant positions in the ordinary markets, or the abuse of markets in the financial markets, sanctioned ex post by the authorities in individual decisions.

But some sectors suffer from structural failures, which prevent them, even without malicious intent of agents, from reaching this mechanism of adjustment of supply and demand. The existence of an economically natural monopoly, for example a transport network, constitutes a structural failure. Another agent will not duplicate once the first network has been built, which prevents competition. An a-competitive regulation, either by nationalization, by a state control or by a control by a regulatory authority, is needed to ensure everyone's access to an essential facility. Also constitutes a market failure asymmetry of information, theorized through the notion of agency that hinders the availability and circulation of exhaustive and reliable information on markets, especially financial markets. This market failure carries with it a systemic risk, against which regulation is definitely built and entrusted to financial regulators and central banks.

In these cases, the implementation of regulations is a reaction of the State not so much by political rejection of the Market, but because the competitive economy is unfit to function. This has nothing to do with the hypothesis that the State is distancing itself from the Market, not because it is structurally flawed in relation to its own model, but because politics wants to impose higher values, expressed By the public service, whose market does not always satisfy the missions.

 

 

► Full Reference: J.-S. Borghetti, "The Relation between Tort 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 points out that in order to establish civil liability, it is first necessary to find fault, i.e. a deviation from an obligation, which will trigger a secondary obligation, that of reparation. But it can also be argued that it is from liability that this primary obligation arises, civil liability then revealing an obligation which existed only implicitly. That establishes a two-way relationship between liability and obligation. The Compliance Obligation illustrates this, in particular through the Obligation of Vigilance conceived by the French law of 2017.

The author therefore devotes the first part of his contribution to civil liability as a result of an Compliance Obligation, especially the Obligation of Vigilance. issued of the French law of 2017. After discussing whether the constraints generated by compliance should be classified as 'obligations', since there is no creditor, which therefore opens the way to liability in tort, he examines the conditions for incurring such liability, which are difficult, particularly with regard to the burden of proof and the demonstration of the causal link. The requirement concerning the latter may evolve in French law towards the admission of proportional causality, as is now accepted in certain cases in German case law.

In the second part of his contribution, the author deals with the hypothesis of civil liability as an indicator of a Compliance Obligation. He points out that the claims made, particularly in the cases of TotalOuganda (France) and Milieudefensie v. Shell (Netherlands) seek to obtain from the judge a such "revelation".

The author considers that it is not possible to draw from the  French 2017 law which refers to article 1240 of the French Civil Code on the liability because this article is referred to only in order to organise the consequences of a breach of article L.225-102-4 of the French Commercial Code organising the Obligation of Vigilance (article 1240 being therefore under the secondary obligation described above) and not to feed what this article L.225-102-4 requires under the primary obligation (defined above). 

On the other hand, the Shell judgment derives directly from civil liability an obligation to act. This is understandable if one takes the perspective and the measure of the future challenges posed, in this case in the area of climate change. But the author considers that it is up to the legislator to decide on such a development in Liability Law. 

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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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