The Tribunal des Conflits ruled in a May 2, 2011 decision that administrative courts have jurisdiction over examining the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF—French Financial Markets Authority)’s liability when the facts involved are unrelated to an individual decision against a corporate plaintiff, but rather pertain to the conditions under which applications for the approval of documents relating to public issuance of shares are examined: the AMF is a legal person incorporated according to public law, and this is not a case in where jurisdiction had specifically been transferred to civil courts of law.
* In The Journal of Regulation, these keywords are done by the Editor and not by the Author.
FRENCH
Le Tribunal des conflits pose, dans un arrêt du 2 mai 2011, que le juge administratif est compétent pour connaître de la responsabilité de l’Autorité des marchés financiers, lorsque les faits reprochés ne tiennent pas à une décision individuelle visant la société demanderesse, mais aux conditions d’instructions de demande de visa de documents d’appel public à l’épargne : l’AMF est une personne morale de droit public et nous ne sommes plus dans un cas précis de transfert de compétence au bénéfice du juge judiciaire.
SPANISH
Informe Temático (Finanza): La responsabilidad del Regulador Financiero debe ser examinada por una jurisdicción administrativa cuando los hechos involucrados no conciernen estrictamente una decisión individual, el único hipótesis cuando una jurisdicción civil es legalmente competente.
El Tribunal des Conflits decidió el 2 de mayo del 2011 que las cortes administrativas tienen jurisdicción sobre la revisión de la responsabilidad de la Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF – la Autoridad francesa de los mercados financieros) cuando los hechos a mano son independientes de una decisión individual contra un demandante corporativo, sino pertenecen a las condiciones bajo las cuales la solicitud para la aprobación de documentos relacionados de acuerdo con derecho público, y esto no es un caso donde la jurisdicción haya sido específicamente transferido a cortes civiles de justicia.
It translates into a set of obligations that companies must perform to ensure that harmful behavior does not occur, such as bribery, money laundering, pollution, etc.
This results in "structural" obligations, such as the establishment of a risk map, a third-party vigilance system, internal controls, the adoption of codes.
The practical question that arises is whether to punish a company, it is necessary but it is sufficient that the company has not adopted these structural measures, or if it is also necessary that within it or through the persons whom it must be accountable (through the corporate officers and the employees, but also the suppliers, the sub-contractors, the financed operators, etc.) there were behaviors that Compliance Law prohibits, for example corruption, money laundering, pollution, safety-related accident, etc.
The question is probative. Its practical stake is considerable.
Because to obtain the conviction the prosecuting authority will have to demonstrate not only a failure in the structural device but also a behavioral failure.
Si l'on considère que le Droit de la Compliance est à la fois sur l'Ex Ante et sur l'Ex Post, alors l'autorité de poursuite qui requiert une sanction doit démontrer qu'il y a un comportement reprochable (Ex Post) et qu'à cela correspond une défaillance structurelle (par exemple le compte bancaire anormal n'a pas été signalé) ; si l'on considère que le Droit de la Compliance est purement en Ex Ante, alors même s'il n'y a pas de comportement reprochable en Ex Post, la seule défaillance structurelle suffit pour que l'entreprise qui doit l'organiser en son sein soit sanctionné.
If we consider that Compliance Law is both on the Ex Ante and the Ex Post, then the prosecuting authority that requires a sanction must show that there is a reprehensible behavior (Ex Post ) and that this corresponds to a structural failure (for example the abnormal bank account has not been reported); if we consider that Compliance Law is purely Ex Ante, then even if there is no reprehensible behavior in Ex Post, the only structural failure is enough for the company to be sanctioned, even if it does its best efforts, even if no prohibited behavior will have accured in Ex Post.
The second system, which is much more repressive and places a considerable burden on companies, even if there is no proven illicit behavior, is that of French Law, probably because of a tendency towards Ex Ante organization. ..
Mais il faut garder mesure. Et cette mesure est probatoire.
But we must keep measure. And this measure is probative.
This is what the Commission des Sanctions of the Agence Française Anticorruption -AFA (French Anti-Corruption Agency's Sanctions Committee) has just said, in its decision of 4 July 2019, SAS S. et Madame C.,(written in French) contradicting the position of its director, who acted as the prosecuting authority. This is yet another general proof of the autonomy of the Sanctions Committee vis-à-vis to the Administrative Authority of which it is a part, and in relation to its director, who nevertheless governs it. But, jurisdictional model obliges, he has here the status of prosecuting authority, is subject to the regime of this one and not to the regime of head of the entity. Demonstration of the "functional autonomy" of the sanctioning bodies within the administrative regulatory and compliance authorities.
Indeed, this important decision expresses with precision and reason the distribution of the "burden of the allegation" and the "burden of proof" on the prosecuting body and on the company pursued, as well as the role of presumption that the recommendations issued by the French Anti-corruption Authority can play.
Before the rules called Basel III shall apply in Switzerland in 2015, the "Département Fédéral de Finance" (Swiss Federal Department of Finance) of the "Conseil Fédéral Suisse" (Swiss Federal Council) has developed a draft of an ordinance that was subject to public consultation on August 28, 2012. Another text will present later rules about systemic banks. The order will be applicable on the 1st January 2013. But banks, like any anticipator market agent, have not already internalized the rules of Basel III ? In addition, it seems that the criterion of systemic continues to be the size of the agent, but it is not so evident.
On November 16, 2010, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India made public a 96-page report (n° 19 of November 2010) in which it revealed gross irregularities suggesting favoritism in procedures for licensing mobile telephone operators and attributing frequencies from the mobile telephone spectrum over a period stretching from April 2003 to October 2009, on behalf of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Following the revelation of this report, the Minister for Telecommunications, Andimuthu Raja, resigned from his post on the suggestion of the Prime Minister of India.
The book "Concurrence, santé publique, innovation et médicament" (Competition, public health, innovation, and medicine), published by French publisher L.G.D.J., provides an analysis of the pharmaceutical sector’s oscillation between competition and regulation. The first part of the study is consecrated to "Médicament dans la regulation des dépenses de santé" (The role of medicine in the regulation of healthcare costs), which exposes health-related questions in their most government-controlled aspect. The second part conceives health through its social function, with "Innovation et incitation à la recherche" (Innovation and incentive to perform research), while the last part explains "Les difficultés des prises en compte par le droit de la concurrence des spécificités du secteur pharmaceutique" (Competition Law’s difficult apprehension of the pharmaceutical sector’s specificities). The three parts of this study offer an exhaustive presentation of the stakes involved in healthcare law, economy, and policy, and clearly shows that the hybrid nature of this sector makes it more a matter for regulation rather than for competition law.
The "Confederadion Empresarios del Juego COFAR" (the Spanish Confederation of the Game) have organized a symposium on 20 June in Barcelona, in which European regulators expressed including the France, the Spain, the Italy and the Portugal. The chairmen of the national regulatory authorities first emphasized their concern for common standards to a European market of a market of online games, including in what could become a domain identified name to refer to European players. In addition, the conference showed their desire for a stronger opening of a European market of online games. This fact also achieved through domain names.
Pierre de Lapasse has been a judge since 2000. In 2002, he was appointed to the tribunal d'instance of Beauvais. He then became a judge at the tribunal de grande instance of Mont-de-Marsan in 2005. (...)
In The Journal of Regulation the summaries’ translation are done by the Editors and not by the authors
ENGLISH
Bibliographic Report (Book): Libéralisation et services publics : économie postale [Liberalization and Public Services: Postal Economics] by François Boldron, Claire Borsenberger, Denis Joram, Sébastien Lecou, and Bernard Roy.
The authors of Liberalization and Public Services: Postal Economics set out to provide a complete and comprehensive economic study of the challenges and possibilities engendered by the liberalization of the French Postal Service. Using experiences from other countries and industries, as well as taking into account the specificities of France’s postal service, the authors have used economic studies to provide an exhaustive account of what the contours of the postal service of the future may be.
ITALIAN
Relazione bibliografica (Libri) : Libéralisation et services publics : économie postale [Liberalizzazione e Servizi pubblici: economia postale] di François Boldron, Claire Borsenberger, Denis Joram, Sébastien Lecou, and Bernard Roy.
Gli autori di “Libéralisation et services publics : économie postale” (Liberalizzazione e Servizi pubblici: economia postale) cercano di predisporre uno studio economico completo e comprensivo delle sfide e delle possibilità generate dalla liberalizzazione del servizio postale francese. Utilizzando le esperienze di altri paesi e di altre industrie, e prendendo in considerazione le specificità del servizio postale francese, gli autori hanno usato studi economici per definire il possibile futuro del sevizio postale.
The "Conseil constitutionnel" (French Constitutional Council), on the occasion of the control of the "Loi de finance rectificative" (amending finance law) adopted, may make rules relating to the regulation. Thus, a Senate amendment had slipped into legislation a tax of 5% on the resale of a television channel, when it had been obtained by the purchaser on account of the assignment for the benefit of a licence conferred by the State free of charge.
The provision is considered non-compliant with the Constitution in that it does not have enough in connection with the organization of the finances of the State and that it pursues another goal: here to avoid that an operator plays with the mechanisms of regulation for purely financial purposes. This struggle by the Council against the "legislative cavaliers" didn’t mean that a measure of this type is later taken by a law, since such concern can be justified.
