People playing online can pay by payment card or credit card. Licensed gambling operators created cards for prepaid usage, likely to be sold in advance to the players. On 18 April 2012, The Autorité française de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL — French Online gambling regulatory authority) examined this practice. The regulator has relied on article 17 of the Act of May 12, 2010, law that organises the system of online games. It specifies that the player account cannot be supplied by the owner by an instrument of payment issued by a "payment service provider". The regulator noted that games operators are not payment service providers and concluded, in a restrictive interpretation, that this practice must be stopped immediately. The regulator confines itself in its decision to "remember this point" to the operators. This is sufficient because if they overlook, the Commission of the sanction of the Autorité française de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL — French Online gambling regulatory authority) online, examined this practice will be there to raise the voice.
Cass R. Sunstein is a prominent Law & Economics teacher (first at the University of Chicago, then at Harvard). Not only has he written reference handbooks on Regulation, he was also the one who inspired the Regulation policies of Obama. In his 2013 book Simpler, he expresses his stance: to be better, public policies need to be simpler.
In this essay, Sunstein explores how behavorial economics might lead to improve public decision-making processes. He bases its stances upon his experience as the Administrator, from 2009 to 2012, of the US Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; that is why anyone who cares about Regulation should read it and ask themselves if simplicity, as the author states, may or may not be an actual leading principle for an effective government.
The OIRA, under the supervision of the Office of Management and Budget placed within the Executive Office, reviews the draft Regulations that are prepared by the cabinets of various rulemaking agencies. In this view, the OIRA can be regarded as a sort of custodian of the quality of Regulation throughout the US; conversely to the mainly consultative functions granted to the Conseil d'Etat in France, the OIRA's opinions are binding. Hence, a draft project shall not be issued nor be enforced without its prior consent. Part of OIRA's defining mission is also to centralize all the information held by diverse people within the executive branch, as to enable its access and circulation between all the rulemaking agencies responsible for elaborating and producing binding regulations.
Simpler is dedicated to the detailed study of the main decisions taken under Sunstein's decisive influence by the OIRA in the Regulation field during Obama's first mandate (2009-2012). Before taking up government functions, Sunstein focused part of his academic work on the interactions that are the most likely to occur between behavioral economics, law and public policy. To him, "a general lesson is that small, inexpensive policy initiatives, informed by behavioral economics, can have big benefits" (p. 41). He namely provides that "without a massive reduction in its current functions, government can be far more effective, far less confusing, far less counterproductive, and far more helpful if it opts, wherever it can, for greater simplicity" (p. 11).
This reference to 'simplicity', from which the name of Sunstein's essay stems, aims at translating all the efforts done by public authorities, under the supervision of the OIRA, to issue rules that were clearer and more accessible than before and that provided their subjects (whether they are citizens, companies, or federal administrations) a greater freedom in the choices they were able to make.
Throughout his book and with a little help from the various situations he had to face during his term at the OIRA, Sunstein shows that there is a virtuous relationship between a better information of the agents (whether they are the authors or the subjects of the norms at stake), a greater simplicity in public decision-making process and a better quality of the regulations meilleure qualité de la réglementation in force in a State. This paper hence aims to sum up the main points of the essay (I.), before making a few comments about it (II.).
The press release is short. Here is what it says: "Le Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel exprime sa vive inquiétude à la suite de la décision du Conseil suprême de la radio et de la télévision (RTÜK), le régulateur des médias en Turquie, de retirer leurs droits d'émission à de nombreuses radios et télévisions. Le Conseil appelle son partenaire de longue date au sein de la Plateforme européenne des instances de régulation (EPRA) et du Réseau des institutions de régulation méditerranéennes (RIRM) à ne pas mettre en cause la liberté de communication et le pluralisme des médias, garanties fondamentales d'une société démocratique." (courtesy translation: "The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisual expresses its deep concerns following the decision of the Supreme Council for Radio and Television (RTÜK), the Turkish Media Regulator, to withdraw the broadcasting rights of numerous radios and televisions. The Conseil calls upon its long-time partner within the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) and the Mediterranean Regulation Authorities Network (RIRM) not to jeopardize the freedom of communication and media pluralism, which are fundamental guarantees in a democratic society").
The press release is entitled "Le CSA s'inquiète du retrait par le régulateur turc des droits d'émission de radios et de télévision" (courtesy translation: "The CSA worries about the decision of the Turkish Regulator to withdraw broadcasting rights to radios and televisions").
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Isn't this surprising?
One would understand that the members of a Regulatory Authority, just as many people, would worry about what has been happening lately in Turkey. One can also share the view that these events might cause them to fear for the sake of public liberties and democracy in the country.
Should a Regulatory Authority express its "worry" though?
Shouldn't it be the Government's role instead, within the framework of its 'diplomatic relations' with the state and with the use of an appropriate vocabulary, to express any 'worry'?
First of all, this is a salient example of the ambiguity of the Audiovisual Regulator. Indeed, while it itself insists on the fact that it acts as an economic regulator of a sector whose development and innovation falls under its watch and monitoring (which namely justifies the fact that he reviews candidacies to the presidency of public televisions channels), the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel had initially been created to preserve public liberties.
As such, people who still embrace the distinction that was previously assumed between public liberties regulation and economic regulation still consider the CSA - along with the CNIL - as the prototype of the former type of regulatory body.
Here the CSA expresses its "deep concern" and sends a request not to "jeopardize liberties", which is the polite version of an injunction, to a foreign regulatory authority upon which it has no authority whatsoever.
One can understand that the Regulator develops soft law about operators on which he has actual authority. But what about here? Shouldn't the adage Nemo plus juris apply?
How is the Regulator competent to issue 'releases' in which he formulates desiderata towards a foreign body whose behavior is unappealing to him? Shouldn't the Quai d'Orsay (French Ministry for Foreign Affairs) be in charge?
The Regulator took a political stance here, while it is known that a Regulatory Authority can only be legitimate when it stands as a technical authority; emphasizing on the political features of its job actually jeopardizes this legitimacy, all the more when international politics are involved (which is the case here).
However, the Regulator does preempt criticism in its press release:
It starts indeed by stating that it only expresses this sort of 'feeling' because of the old ties that exists between the French and the Turkish Regulators: it essentially considers that friends can be true to one another, express a few criticism and expect changes. Friendship in the digital media and in politics would allow for many things.
Besides, the CSA recalls the solidarity that prevails between the two regulators. Because they are "long-time partner within the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) and the Mediterranean Regulation Authorities Network (RIRM)", the French Regulator is enabled to express the Turkish Regulators its view on how it is jeopardizing democracy and how it should consequently stop.
Maybe the many ties that exists between the Regulators now enable them to give more or less stringent advice to one another, whereas diplomatic embassies now play an increasing economic role: how blur do the lines get!
The FCC’s 2010 “open Internet” (net neutrality) order went into effect on November 20, 2011. Verizon Communications and Metro PCS have challenged the FCC Order in court, alleging that the FCC lacked statutory power to impose net neutrality rules in connection with Internet access services.
FRENCH
L’ordonnace 2010 de la FFC (le régulateur nord-américain des communications) "open Internet" est entrée en vigueur le 20 novembre 2011. Les sociétés Verizon Communications et Metro PCS ont contesté devant le juge cette ordonnance, alléguant quela FCCn’avait pasle pouvoir légald’imposer des règles sur la neutralité du net concernant l'accès aux services d'Internet.
Internet needs to be regulated, but by whom and from what criteria?
The high speed building of very different cases shows the urgency of reflections on the principles.
Consider the case in which just entered the British Regulatory Authority Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Thiss Authority isn't specific to the Internet but the fact the behavior takes place on the Internet doesn't stop the Regulator, the ASA applying its control on "all media".
An Irish betting company organized bets about a future event: conviction or acquittal of Oscar Pistorus for the death of his fiancée. The latter doesn't deny being the author of the fatal blow but claims that he isn't responsible legally.
The website reproduces the accused of a very recognizable way in the form of an Oscar statuette. This is due to the homonymous first name and the statue of the reward. But this is also a triple ambiguity created by the company.
Secondly the statue can't walk as the athlete si one takes off his prosthetic that made him win races.
Thirdly and more than that, if convicted, he remains in prison, Oscar Pistorum would continue to be deprived of his freedom to come and go, and therefore still unable to "walk" freely, the betting firm indicating that it will reimburses money if the accused will "walk" (out of prison - as a sort of miracle ...).
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Watchingthat, more than 5,000 people protested. But before whom? In this excess of regulators, people turn to perhaps the most dynamic: in the UK it is probably the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) .
But what to blame?
One could have said that it is illegal to bet on the outcome of a trial.
One could argue that you can't bet about a terrible history, whose center is the death of a young woman.
But it's rather toward the disability side and "minority rights" that the case is taking shape. Indeed, associations see it as primarily a mockery of people who can't walk.
Without further developed if the ASA takes a position on this advertising that the company has since removed, it will take a strong position in the regulation of the Internet and could for example clarify and prioritize the interests that must be respect in the virtual world.
In Spain, the liberalization and legalizalisation of online games, provided by the Act for January 2012, was postponed in June 2012. The licensing by the regulator is in preparation. These licenses may relate to all kinds of games including sports betting and casino games, excluding slot machines. But the Spanish tax services informed that an implied condition of approval of an operator candidate for obtaining a licence existed: payment of taxes due in Spain. However, many companies, whose headquarters is located in another country, have high arrears of taxes calculated by the administration. It can be noticed that the fiscal interests of the States is a key element in the regulation of the games, that can interfere with the mechanism, which appears however distinct from the approval by the regulator.
In an article written in French, the press of Senegal reported a conference in which the First President of the Dakar Court of Appeal stated that the judicial court - in the present case the Dakar Court of Appeal - after being a bit "frightened "by the regulatory law, because of its technicality, and after its fear of being dispossessed of cases because of the power of that the regulatory authorities in place to exercise the dispute resolution, is able to play its role today.
He first asserts that judges learned the technic of regulatory matter(in this case, his speech was about the public markets).
He asserts, secondly, that when the parties are in conflict, they continue to go before the judicial court, regardless of the existence of the independant administrative bodies and their dispute resolution function.
In France, doyen Ripert, who wrote the most eminent treatises on both Civil Law and Corporate Law, possessed a genius that led him to be the first law scholar to study the relationship between Corporate Law and the economic organization of capitalism. In this fundamental work, he highlighted the benefits of the Société Anonyme: it’s majority rule is a tribute to efficiency, and its limitation of shareholders’ liability to the amount of their capital invested produces an incentive to invest. Ripert thereby studied law from an outsider’s perspective. Nobody has ever denied the relationship between the economic structure of the corporation and the legal structure of the corporation, just as no jurist has ever denied the link between the commercial transaction and the contract. Precisely, Ripert gave a sort of evaluation, a way of understanding law from the outside, instead of discussing law from the inside by substituting what the law is for what one wishes it would be. Economics were external to Law, Law adapted itself to Economics, and Economics were not at the heart of Law.
FRENCH
Le droit des sociétés, lorsqu’il est vu par le prisme de la Régulation : Industrie des services financiers et protection du marché de l’investissement
En France, le doyen Ripert qui écrivit tout à la fois les plus grands traités de droit civil et de droit commercial a eu l’ingéniosité d’être le premier juriste à étudier le rapport entre le droit des sociétés et l’organisation économique du capitalisme. Dans cet ouvrage fondamental, il soulignait les bienfaits de la société anonyme, par le tribut que la loi de la majorité rend à l'efficacité et par l'incitation à investir produite par la limitation de responsabilité des actionnaires à hauteur de leur apport. Il s'agissait de parler à propos du droit, dans une perspective extérieure à celui-ci. Nul n'a jamais ignoré les rapports entre la structure économique de l'entreprise et la société commerciale, de la même façon qu'aucun juriste n'a dénié le rapport entre l'échange marchand et le contrat. Mais précisément, il s'agissait d'un rapport, une façon de parler du droit en se situant en dehors de celui-ci, et non pas d'une intimité ou d'une substituabilité entre le droit et ce qui est attendu de lui. L'économie était vue comme extérieure, le droit se mettait en rapport avec elle, l’économie n'était pas au cœur du droit.
GERMAN
Artikel: Körperschaftsrecht durch das Prisma der Verordnung gesehen: der Finanzdienstleistungssektor und der Investorenschutz
In Frankreich war Doyen Ripert, der bedeutende Abhandlungen sowohl über Zivil- und als auch über Körperschaftsrecht schrieb, der erste Jurist, der das Verhältnis zwischen Körperschaftsrecht und der wirtschaftlichen Organisation des Kapitalismus untersuchte. In dieser entscheidenden Arbeit betonte er die Vorteile der Aktiengesellschaft (AG): Mehrheitsentscheidung führt zu maximaler Effizienz und Investitionen werden gefördert durch die Beschränkung der Haftung der Aktionäre. Ripert studierte Rechtswissenschaften somit aus der Perspektive eines Außenstehenden. Niemand hat zwar das Verhältnis zwischen der ökonomischen Struktur eines Unternehmens und seiner rechtlichen Struktur angezweifelt, ebenso wie kein Jurist die Verbindung zwischen dem Handelsgeschäft und dem Vertragsrecht leugnen würde. Jedoch gab Ripert eine Art von Evaluierung, eine Analyse des Rechts in der Perspektive eines Außenstehenden, anstatt von einem Insider-Standpunkt zu philosophieren was das Gesetz sagt und was es sagen sollte. Ökonomie und Recht waren zwei getrennte Disziplinen: das Recht musste sich zwar der Wirtschaft anpassen, jedoch befanden sich wirtschaftliche Beweggründe nicht im Zentrum der Rechtswissenschaft.
POLISH
Artykuł: Prawo o spółkach widziane z punktu widzenia Regulacji: Sektor usług finansowych i ochrona rynku inwesticji.
We Francji, Dziekan Ripert, który napisał najbardziej znane traktaty z prawa cywilnego i prawa handlowego, był jednocześnie pierwszym prawnikiem, który studiował relację istniejącą pomiędzy prawem o spółkach a ekonomiczną organizacją kapitalizmu. W swoim głównym traktacie, podkreślał korzystne strony francuskiej formy spółki z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością (Société Anonyme) : Obowiązująca reguła większości nadaje skuteczności w działaniu, a ograniczenie odpowiedzialności wspólników w stosunku do zainwestowanego kapitału, zachęca do inwestowania. Riper analizował prawo w kontekscie innym niż kontekst prawny. Nikt nigdy nie zaprzeczał istnienia relacji pomiędzy strukturą ekonomiczną firmy i spółką handlową. Tak samo jak żaden prawnik nie negował związku istniejącego pomiędzy wymianą handlową i umową.
Ale to właśnie Ripert, zaproponował po raz pierwszy analizę prawa, wychodzac poza jego kontekst prawny, zamiast oceniać prawo z wewnętrznego, prawnego punktu widzenia lub próbować substytuowac prawo na takie jakie chciałoby się żeby było.
Ekonomia była zawsze traktowana odzielnie od prawa. Prawo dostosowywało się do ekonomii, a ekonomia nie była w centrum prawa.
SPANISH
El derecho corporativo visto a través de la prisma de la regulación: la industria de los Servicios financieros y la protección al inversor.
En Francia, el decano Ripert, quien escribió uno de los tratados más inminentes sobre el Derecho civil y el Derecho corporativo, poseía un genio que lo convirtió en el primer erudito en estudiar la relación entre el Derecho corporativo y la organización económica del capitalismo. En su obra fundamental, subraya los beneficios de la Sociedad Anónima: su regla de la mayoría es tributo a la eficiencia y la limitación que pone sobre los pasivos de los accionistas en cuanto al acceso al capital que han invertido se convierte en un incentivo más para invertir. Ripert ha logrado, por consiguiente, estudiar el derecho de una perspectiva ajena. Nadie ha negado nunca la relación entre la estructura económica de la corporación y la estructura legal de la corporación, tal como ningún jurista no ha negado nunca el lazo entre la transacción comercial y el contrato. Precisamente, Ripert da una clase de evaluación, una manera de comprender el derecho desde afuera, en vez de discutirlo desde adentro al substituir lo que el derecho es en la realidad y lo que desearíamos que el derecho fuera. La Economía se encontraba fuera de la esfera del Derecho, pero el Derecho se ha adaptado a la Economía, y la Economía no se encontraba en el núcleo del Derecho.
The Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Judicial Court) made a decision on 19th of December 2019 about a case concerning a refusal to communicate his mobile phone's unlock code to the police while the police found him with a significant quantity of narcotic and a lot of cash and that there was a certain probability that this mobile phone get proofs of culpability of its owner. The individual was indicted not for narcotic trafficking but for not having communicate its unlock code which constitute an offense to article 434-15-2 of code pénal, from the loi du 3 juin 2018 renforçant la lutte contre la criminalité organisée, et le terrorisme et leur financement (law reinforcing organized crime, terrorisme and their financing).
The accused invokes before the court its right to not incriminate oneself. Indeed, the configuration face to policemen was such that if he refused to communicate its unlock code, he will be punished because of this obligation to communicate his code and that if he accepted, he will also be sanctioned because of the proofs contained into the mobile phone. Such a configuration therefore offered him no alternative to confessing, which is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and to European and national jurisprudence.
Face to such a case, the Cour de Cassation chose to segment the information and proposed the following solution: if the researched information cannot be obtained regardless of the suspect willingness, it is not possible to constraint this person to communicate this information without violating its procedural rights, but if the information can be obtained regardless of the suspect willingness then the individual is obliged to communicate his code. In the current case, as it was possible for policemen to obtain information contained in the phone by technical means, longer but existent, then the refuse of communication of the unlock code by the suspect constitute an obstruction that should be sanctioned.
Such a decision is an exemple of the conciliation by the judge of two fundamental but contradictory "monumental goals" of Compliance Law: transparency of information towards public authorities and very sensible personal data protection.
