The recent news
June 14, 2016
Breaking news
On 9 June, the SEC made an announcement on its website.
- The Regulator itself issued the amount of the award to a whistleblower for having providing it with information. Why is that? One would usually take a lower profile when awarding this much money ($17m) to an informer… Conversely, the Regulator immediately and publicly announced it in a press release, which pretty looked like a tender offer for further denunciations. It even included a link for everyone to access the whistleblower program—which is easily funded, since the awards are charged on the fines imposed on the convicted operators thanks to the information given.
- The reason for this is that information from whistleblowers is not merely indicative, nor a second-best option; it is central to Regulation, since it leads the Regulator to get information people within the system (i.e., insiders) deliberately chooses to ‘blow’ (in fact, not only do informers blow the whistle—they often immediately provide the Regulator with substantial information).
- The press release includes justifications for the Regulator’s behaviour, as the SEC openly considers that rewarding whistleblowers is the most efficient way for the Regulator to open or to resolve investigations. The Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement stated indeed that “company insiders are uniquely positioned to protect investors and blow the whistle on a company’s wrongdoing by providing key information to the SEC so we can investigate the full extent of the violations”.
- This highlights the ambivalence of insiders. Accordingly, they need to be ‘inside’ the system to be ‘knowledgeable’ and, consequently, obtain privileged information. On the one hand, should they use this information for themselves, then they would face prosecution for market abuse; on the other hand, however, if they use it to stir up the Regulator and shift its attention towards the whistle they’re blowing, then they may earn just as much money, if not more, than if they had behaved in a way that would have led them to prison.
The stage is thus set for the "business of virtue" to thrive.
Jan. 21, 2016
Articles
Sept. 16, 2015
Events
Attendance at this conference can be validated under the continuing education of lawyers of Paris Bar.
After the holding of this conference, a French-written book will be published in the Regulations Series, edited by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, in the French Publisher Dalloz.
Initially the Regulation assumes the consideration of technical objects (telephone, airplane, train, wheat, currency, electricity, etc.). This practical perspective opposes the abstract view of competition law that neutralizes objects by their monetary evaluation and the elaboration of a "fair price" obtained by the meeting of supply and demand in a market.Thus, each technical object has developed specific regulation as in a cottage garden: banking regulation, financial regulation, railway regulation, telecommunications regulation, power regulation, gaming regulation, horse races regulation, and so on. The body of rules and institutions were built, unique to each object, more effective than the behemoth that is the State in charge of all these so different objects and pursuing so many objectives that it was criticized for its inefficiency.
But different technical objects are not isolated from each other. As financial products have long taken the other items as "underlying". More Internet has introduced a novelty that could be radical.
Indeed, the Internet allows a circulation seems unhindered benefits that fall most often regulated sectors (financial services, health service, audiovisual services, etc.). Moreover, new objects appear, the "connected objects" whose creation is based on the Internet's ability to set effective relationship hitherto separate sectors, eg telecommunication and health services (the "connected health ).
Therefore, the Internet, which is often presented as a regulatory desert, appears as a jumble of different regulations, which contradict or are deformed by passing in the virtual world and crossing or even clashing with other regulation. So Internet would appear at first glance as a "space of interregulation".
The conference of 16 September 2015 dedicates its morning to draw up a diagnostic for measuring the "needs" of the Internet interregulation, so that the afternoon will allow to develop some "solutions" to interregulation. On this occasion, we can measure whether it will adapt traditional regulations because of new technologies and new uses, or more radically rethink sectoral regulations and regulatory law because Internet
Sept. 2, 2015
Sectorial Analysis
Passenger transport markets in Europe have been, and continue to be, liberalised across jurisdictions and sectors.
Since July 2015, passenger coach operators in France have been allowed to operate without regulation on longer routes (over 100km). For shorter routes, ARAFER, the French regulator for rail and roads, will test whether the coach service is likely to threaten the viability of the public rail service offered by SNCF on the same route. What changes could this reform bring, and how might the economic test be applied?
May 22, 2015
Translated Summaries : 01. Transports
May 20, 2015
Sectorial Analysis
