It is true the Directive of the European Parliament and the Council follows a consultation conducted for several years by the European Commission on the subject of Social Responsibility. Whatever might have said the "stakeholders", the Directive contains the same lines tham the European Commission Communication of 13 April 2011, adopted on 25 October 2011 on the topic.
It is difficult today to oppose "Hard Law" and "Soft Law": Law hardens gradually. Thus, from the "communication", we went to the "resolutions", whose status remains uncertain, both a communication firmer but less binding than a law, since resolution is only for its author ... Thus Parliament in its resolutions of 6 February 2013 'resolved' to design an "inclusive" vision of the corporate action, to dance together profitability and social justice. To get by, it must suffice to say that the Social Responsibility Company is "multidimensional" ... Guidelines of the European Commission (non-binding) will explicit. Wait and see.
Following a series of obligations on information that companies must make available "to the public and authorities." Thus, companies must do the work instead of public authorities themselves. The provisions relating to non-financial information are mandatory and standardized. They are particularly demanding on the environment.
But when the text provides more substantial obligations, such as making the activity business less polluting, the Directive simply ask the member states to encourage companies to adopt "best practices" in the field. The market itself is incitative, in particular for making boards of large corporations more diverses. Because the principle is the belief that "investor access to non-financial information is a step towards achieving the goal of effective .... Europe in the use of resources," in a regulatory context of a "smart, sustainable and inclusive" growth".
On the paper the "Autorité de Régulation du Secteur de la Microfinance» - ARSM" (the Regulatory Authority of the Microfinance Sector), established by law in Niger, is both original and powerful. Indeed, it is rare that this financing mechanism be regulated by a body that is its own and the Decree of 27 March 2007 that created gives it the powers to deliver licenses, permits to exercise, to disseminate information, to monitor the " Systèmes Financiers Décentralisés"- SFD (Decentralised Financial Systems), to conduct inspections and sanction. But in reality, the economic culture of savings failed in Niger and political instability made goes away a few foreign cooperative banks which had supplemented the lack of conventional banks. The Authority also requests that the public authorities, managers of the structures of micro-credit clean up the sector, before injecting any new money.
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
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?
The translated summaries are done by the Editors and not by the Authors.
ENGLISH
“Global Financial Integration, Thirty Years on. From reform to crisis”
combines many academic contributions on international financial
governance, that each offer original and in-depth analysis of the
financial crisis’ causes. To safeguard the authors’ legal and economic
reasoning, the bibliographical report has been divided in three parts
and will be brought to The Journal of Regulation’s readers in three
successive issues . The following report analyses the third part of the
volume.
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.
In this report, the Committee mesures how national systems gradually implement the prudential reforms they have informally elaborated in common.
All the power derived from the Basel System stems indeed from the fact that it is concentrated; however, it still has to face a 'hard law' issue, as it is necessary to implement the reforms within the national systems in identical terms and in a constrained timeframe.
The Committee indicates in its reports that some countries still face a number of issues regarding this implementation, whether these issues arise from the rules themselves or from the transposition period that the countries are given to implement them. Those same countries tend to justify themselves by saying that banks are to blame for these issues, since they report having trouble adjusting their information system as to satisfy the new requirements.
The Committee underlines the fact that this delay occurs in some countries whereas others are already compliant creates a situation of unfair 'jurisdiction' competition between them, which is all the more concerning since these national systems host international banks: "Delayed implementation may have implications for the level playing field, and puts unnecessary pressure on jurisdictions that have implemented the standards based on the agreed timelines. A concurrent implementation of global standards is all the more important, as many jurisdictions serve as hosts to internationally active banks.".
In order to improve an effective implementation of the whole system, the Committee proposed to implement instead a calculus method that would be less complex: "These proposals would constrain banks’ use of internal models and would reduce the complexity of the regulatory framework.".
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A few general observations can be drawn from this very specific Basel III issue underlined in the aforementioned report:
soft law needs at some point to get concrete (which is closely monitored since the rules do need to be implemented), otherwise it is not law at all;
it is through implementation that the weight and the contours of common rules are actually being felt;
this situation is a good reminder of the fact that competing jurisdictions are an actual thing and a issue to deal with;
what is an argument based of complexity, or even impossibility, of the technical implementation of a requirement worth?
This last question is crucial. Those who impose the requirement may consider that the non-enforcement for technical reasons cannot be accepted!footnote-68. Here, however, maybe since it is not a formal requirement as this is all soft law, and since there is a good communication between the supervisor and the executing agent (who is, at the same time, the one that is subject to the requirement, the one who elaborated it and the one who proposes to review it as to make it less complex).
Cass. R. Sunstein's last book was entitled Simpler. French Conseil d’État (French administrative supreme court) conducts thorough work on the quality of laws and on their simplicity, both qualities that probably go hand in hand. The Basel Committee steps in the same directions...
The sessions will be held at the Conseil Economique, Social et Environnemental (CESE). Each session, which will be held (in French) from 5pm to 7pm, will give the stage to a panel of 3 to 4 speakers and will be concluded by a Q&A session with the audience.
The sessions will be held for seven weeks in a row, from October 5th to November 30th, 2016.
