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The cost issue of regulation is a recurring issue.

One can complain specifically, when companies are protesting about the "cost of regulation" or when the topic is taken as an object of study, through the cost / benefit calculation.

A practical question of importance is whether there is a "legal question" or not.

The "juridicity" of a question is defined by the fact that discussing about this question has an effect on the outcome of a case before a judge. This concrete definition, leaving the judge's power, binding nature of the rule (here the balance between cost and benefit) the effectiveness of its decision before the judge, its consideration by him in the decision he makes, has been proposed in France by Carbonnier. It is opposed to a definition of Law by the source, the author of the rule, which identifies law for example through Parliament Acts, because the text is adopted by the legislator, listed source of law.

The first definition, more sociological, more flexible, giving the spotlight on judge better corresponds to a legal system which gives more room for ex post and for the judge. It is logical that we find more demonstrations of this conception in the common law systems.

However, the issue of cost / benefit is being debated before the Supreme Court of the United States, about the latest environmental regulations, adopted by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). It is a question of law. It is under the empire of the judge.

For it is in this light that President Barack Obama in November 2014 asked a very costly regulation, and it was under his leadership that the Environmental Protection Agency has developed texts. Indeed, pollution of certain plants are the cause of asthma and laid in public health imperative to fight a regulation that results in a direct cost on firms. Indeed, some plants pollution is the cause of asthma and President Obama has asked public health imperative to combat by a regulation that results in a direct cost on the industry. The regulations adopted in 2012 they cost a $ 9 million, some claiming that future ones could result in billions of costs directly related to business The President emphasized by stating that the health of children was priceless.

By challenging those of 2012 before the Supreme Court, in the case Michigan v. EPA, this is the other texts that conservative states and companies have in mind because it is the principle that is posed: : does A regulator have the right to take regulations very "expensive" when the advantage, however legitimate it is, is small-scale in terms of costs? The Supreme Court, having chosen to handle the case, listened to March 25, 2015, the arguments of each other and discussed the case.

The question is the integration or not into the constitutional notion of "necessity of the law" of the "cost / benefit" calculation. This is a crucial point because the concept of "necessity of the law" is a common notion to the constitutions of many countries.

However, not only the so-called judges "conservatives" as Justice Antonio Scalia, took position felt it was crazy not "consider" the cost of new regulations from the expected health benefits, but also Justice Stephen Breyer called "progressive," said "irrational" the environmental regulator has not taken in consideration such an imbalance between cost and benefit.

It is true that Justice Breyer was formerly professor of competition law at Harvard.

Judgment will be given in June.

Read the Seminar program (14h - 19h30).

Its issue is the concept of "conflict of interest" by confronting the financial techniques of risk assessment and legal responses developed about it on the rating agencies, especially in 2009.

Speakers are Thomas Aam, Thierry Bonneau, Björn Fasterking, Markus Krall, Frédéric Lobez and Jean-Claude Werrebrouck.

Inscriptions : dherbaut@univ-lille2.fr

Information : marjorie.eeckhoudt@univ-lille1.fr

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It is often argued that energy because it is a matter of sovereignty and because it is rooted in the territory, returns to the State. But it is resolutely towards Europe that Michel Derdevet pulls the whole system.

Probably by conviction, by will of a strong Europe and because there has economic power only when propped on energy. However, an energy system that is up by networks as in energy, we never doubted the convergence between the container and the content, meaning that the energy source is irrelevant whitout being carried, whitout being 'provided to users.

This construction of the networks is political and it is in terms of "mesh" that the report Michel Derdevet just submitted to the President of the Republic, François Hollande, presents a European project. In a way, it is not "revolutionary", as it is to finally fulfill the will of those who conceived Europe in 1945 through the coal, steel and energy, to a common Europe from which built the industry, not only for the reconstruction of Europe but for its economic dynamism and its common security policy.

In this, the European network of the transportation of electricity is essential. Yet it is to be done because the legislation of the European Union rather liberalized energy markets whitout building Europe of energy, leaving remaining national specificities. The result is what Michel Derdevet rightly called "inertia".

He therefore proposes the establishment of an "European industrial project." In this context, Michel Derdevet requires better definition of "model of norms and regulation", aiming in particular the structure of tariffs that include or not the R & D according to the Member States, claiming the alignment of the tasks of network operators and a price guarantee for users, which would facilitate investment. He stressed that national regulatory differences hinder the development of smart grids (and therefore the European market). Without a convergence of regulations, interoperability is not optimal, as it would allow Europe to be a major global player in energy.

Michel Derdevet therefore advocates regulation that goes to both a stronger European articulation, but at the same time which must be more "decentralized", for users to make better use of new uses of energy through the action of regulators they are close.

It is true that we are very far off ...

This is why the author asks what one favors "regulatory convergence". This is not only to harmonize rules but also to redirect them to detach the competitive prism to direct them to the long-term financing.

It is true that Europe's energy, without which a single industrial space can hardly be, can not actually do if the regulation does not resolutely takes over the principle of competition, competition remaining in the moment of exchange, while the Regulation is in the long term and what to take to designate as "industrial policy" which is nothing but a form of expression of the Political.

So what Michel Derdevet request, what ever that finally the arrival of a political Europe, the need for it finds its place in the global competition.

The theme of the relationship between regulation and innovation finds every day new illustrations. The example of the drone is particularly noteworthy.

Indeed, the drone is a technical object that moves in the air without being driven in an immediate way by the hand of man.

The legal mechanism of qualification brought the drone in the category of "aircraft" and submit it to the regulatory power of the civil aviation regulator.

The regulation of civil aviation is primarily a safety regulation, not a regulation of the sector's economic deployment.

This is why regulators have taken restrictive positions on drones used for commercial purposes, to the extent that the presence of human beings, most the pilots, are the condition for the safety of people. The fact that the drones fly with "no one" led to consider as a danger a prior, which led regulators to take restrictive measures on flying drones for commercial purposes, restricton consistent with the regulator's intervention criteria, without taking into account external rules, such as the protection of privacy.

But whatever the sector, regulators see themselves increasingly as economic regulators. If we adopt this perspective, a restrictive approach appears to be nonsense.

In the interests of balance in both approaches, the safety of people and the economic development through innovation, the US civil aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration is developing new rules.

February 11, 2015, Federal Aviation Administration raised the need for a legal framework for commercial drones. The reason for this is economic. As it writes: "It is anticipated that this activity will result in significant economic benefits".  Indeed, Article 333 of the 2012 ACT of modernization and reform  imposes registration procedure for every commercial unmanned flying object in the sky!footnote-28. But this hinders business development, and therefore the incentive to technical innovation drone.

It was necessary to find a balance between security of persons and lifting of barriers to economic development. This is why the FAA will distinguish between "small" and other drones. The former are particularly useful in agriculture. To the extent that the former do not constitute danger to persons, an exemption from this procedure (Article 333 exemption) may be given concerning them.

One can analyze this evolution of air Regulation in two ways. First, it is for air regulator to take into account fundamental innovation of flying machines with "no one": innovation will be the base of a huge market for which strict regulatory rules could have been the troublemaker. The consideration of the safety of people remains since only drones "small" are allowed. In addition, they will have to remain at low level and away from airports and housing.

Second, the Regulator reacts by pragmatism. The ban on commercial flight drones hasn't prevented investment in this area. So far, the regulator had instead chosen not to react to the open violations of the standards, from the moment that the safety of the people wasn't in danger. The idea of the new conception is to promote this new market by putting the rules protecting the physical safety of people.

There was a time when the key was in the rule. Today is essentially in the effectiveness of the rule. What the English and Americans call: Enforcement.

When operators are very powerful and regulators have little information, when the rule is complex, when situations are always changing and diverse, most of the regulatory art focuses on enforcement.

It shows a little more the continuum between Ex ante and ex post, moreover the circularity between them. Not only sanction is necessary ex post to the regulatory body for the rules that it asked ex ante have an effectiveness, but conversely, if we want that breaches the rule that powerful operators are committed could be sanctioned, it is through the Ex ante they must be punished.

Thus, when a financial operator wants to raise funds in the US financial market, he must request authorization from the Regulator to do so or at least to declare beforehand. It is therefore an Ex Ante mechanism. But if the operator is trustworthy, then it can be a kind of privilege that allows him to raise funds without submitting to the heavy and lengthy procedure. It takes but just whether trusted opérator.

However, Reuters reported the next development by the SEC guidelines for applying its power to withdraw the exemption to operators which had broken the law, civil or criminal.

While this may be explained by the fact that these operators have shown they don't deserve the confidence that justified access to the status of "well-known seasoned issuer" (WKSI) offering this "privilege" exempting regulation.

This is especially a new crackdown. The withdrawal of that relief proceedings valuable to the operator who regularly raises funds on the market, making him reach the common lot of borrowers, making carrying a disadvantage compared to operators who respect the law and shall remain holders of "bureaucratic privilege".

In a regulation in which repression becomes the central arrow in the quiver, here is an acute .

It begs the question: claiming that it is within the Ex Ante, can the regulator be dispensed to apply the rights of the defense?