As part of a procedure initiated for anti-competitive behaviors, the European Commission has three times requested, between the 13th of March and the 11th of November 2019, from Facebook the communication of information, reitarated in a decision in May 2020.
Facebook contests it alleging that the requested documents would contain sensitive personal information that a transmission to the Commission would make accessible to a too broad number of observers, while "the documents requested under the contested decision were identified on the basis of wideranging search terms, (...) there is strong likelihood that many of those documents will not be necessary for the purposes of the Commission’s investigation".
The contestation therefore evokes the violation of the principles of necessity and proportionality but also of due process because these probatory elements are collected without any protection and used afterwards. Moreover, Facebook invokes what would be the violation of a right to the respect of personal data of its employees whose the emails are transferred.
The court reminds that the office of the judge is here constraint by the condition of emergency to adopt a temporary measure, acceptable by the way only if there is an imminent and irreversible damage. It underlines that public authorities benefit of a presumption of legality when they act and can obtain and use personal data since this is necessary to their function of public interest. Many allegations of Facebook are rejected as being hypothetical.
But the Court analyzes the integrality of the evoked principles with regards with the very concrete case. But, crossing these principles and rights in question, the Court estimates that the European Commission did not respect the principle of necessity and proportionality concerning employees' very sensitive data, these demands broadening the circle of information without necessity and in a disproportionate way, since the information is very sensitive (like employees' health, political opinions of third parties, etc.).
It is therefore appropriate to distinguish among the mass of required documents, for which the same guarantee must be given in a technique of communication than in a technic of inspection, those which are transferable without additional precaution and those which must be subject to an "alternative procedure" because of their nature of very sensitive personal data.
This "alternative procedure" will take the shape of an examination of documents considered by Facebook as very sensitive and that it will communicate on a separate electronic support, by European Commission's agents, that we cannot a priori suspect to hijack law. This examination will take place in a "virtual data room" with Facebook's attorneys. In case of disagreement between Facebook and the investigators, the dispute could be solved by the director of information, communication and medias of the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission.
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We can draw three lessons from this ordinance:
This decision shows that Procedural Law and Compliance Law are not opposed. Some often say that Compliance guarantees the efficacy and that Procedure guarantees fundamental rights, the protection of the one must result in the diminution of the guarantee of the other. It is false. As this decision shows it, through the key notion of sensitive personal data protection (heart of Compliance Law) and the care for procedure (equivalence between communication and inspection procedures; contradictory organization of the examination of sensitive personal data), we see once again that two branches of Law express the same care, have the same objective: protecting people.
The judge is able to immediately find an operational solution, proposing "an alternative procedure" axed around the principle of contradictory and conciliating Commision's and Facebook's interests has shown that it was able to bring alternative solutions to the one it suspends the execution, appropriate solution to the situation and which equilibrate the interest of both parties.
The best Ex Ante is the one which anticipate the Ex Post by the pre-constitution of evidence. Thus the firm must be able to prove later the concern that it had for human rights, here of employees, to not being exposed to sanctioning pubic authorities. This Ex Ante probatory culture is required not only from firms but also from public authorities which also have to give justification of their action.
On November 4, 2010, the French telecommunications regulator obliged a fiber optic network operator to obey certain conditions for the access to civil engineering infrastructures that it had not accepted in its contracts with the civil engineering infrastructure operator. The Court of Appeals of Paris confirmed this ruling on June 23, 2011 on the grounds that the civil engineering operator required all fiber optic network operators to behave identically.
FRENCH
Par une décision du 4 novembre 2010, le régulateur français des télécommunications avait obligé un opérateur de réseau fibre, pourtant titulaire de contrats, à observer des contraintes contenues dans l’offre “accès au génie” qu’il n’avait pas acceptées. La décision est approuvée par la Cour d’appel de Paris le 23 juin 2011, car l’opérateur du génie civil a besoin de comportements homogènes de la part de tous les opérateurs de fibres optiques.
SPANISH
El principio de los estándares de la neutralidad (el ejemplo de estándares de contabilidad)
El tema de la neutralidad trae a luz un cierto número de ideas preliminares.
Para comenzar, la figura de Buda viene a mente, porque él sólo expresa la naturaleza interminable que es el tema de la neutralidad, ya que al pensar en el hecho de que él no piensa en absolutamente nada, Buda aún así piensa en algo. También me hace pensar el intento constante de la música contemporánea de alcanzar una forma de neutralidad: pero este objetivo permanece inalcanzable, porque es evidente que la búsqueda de lo neutral, en un sonido o un timbre, probablemente nunca se podrá encontrar.
This particular statutory provision shows the proximity between Regulation and Governance, nearby sometimes believed limited to the sphere of banking and finance.
This is designed especially for managers of transport networks which are often subsidiaries of incumbents production and energy sales, economic and legal integration that the law does not prohibit even though it requires independence transport network managers. This independence must be de facto and not de jure, which is a higher requirement than mere legal autonomy of companies, the result of the requirements of "governance", the operator is obliged not to exercise the rights and powers its parent company status yet gives a regular basis so that the first principle of independence of the network manager is preserved.
The relationship between the controlling shareholder and its subsidiary are governed by "codes of conduct" in the mandatory order of the independence of management and decision making of the subsidiary. In a 90-page reportthe regulator sets the constraints so that this goal leads in effect on the parent company, beyond corporate law.
However, the regulator is very severe. It believes that the way in which subsidiaries present themselves to consumers mark such similarity with their parent that these third parties can't identify them as independent of them. According to the regulator, consumers therefore don't identify them as carriers or distributors of energy also offered by competitors of their parent.
Thus, the regulator considers it necessary that these subsidiaries will change their brands, logos and legal designation, eg ERDF ceases to have a name so close to EDF.
The implicit question is the legal effect of such reproaches and suggestions, if the companies aren't listening. The report discusses the prospect to bring the question before their independent body able to impose sanctions. But the case will be difficult because the principle of independence meets the principle of freedom and the terms of the interference between regulatory law and corporate law aren't yet clearly established.
The European Medicine Agency decided to open its archives on the totalities of clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical companies, work that led to the authorization of drugs market.
In this, the Authority operates a fundamental change in regulation, replacing the principle of information by the principle of transparency, to the detriment of business confidentiality.
The Journal of Regulation (JoR) was created in 2009 Marie-Anne Frison-Roche to study Regulation as a developing phenomenon.
Regulation can be defined as a set of mechanisms, rules, institutions, decisions and principles that allow certain sectors of the economy to grow and maintain equilibriums that they could not establish solely via their own economic strength.
Over the past years, 'common rules' to all the sectors impacted by Regulation (e.g., transports, energy, telecommunications, banking, finance, insurance, etc.) have appeared beyond the sectorial regulations that have been issued for the past decades, whose specificity were once justified by the great variety of sectorial technicalities that used to impregnate in return the sets of rules designed to regulate those sectors.
Neither economics nor political science - namely throughout the declining figure of the State - are sufficient to capture this common organisation and projection into the future that Regulation is, which we must understand to anticipate its evolution and act in accordingly.
The newly developed "Regulation Law" restores what is common to all of those sectors using a triangulated approach between Law, Economics and Politics. This is all the more important since Regulation already tends to dissociate itself from its founding notion of "sector", not only to be increasingly associated with the more inclusive one of "branch", but also to get more and more autonomous- that is, for instance, the case of the digital issues that cannot be reduced to a "sector" anymore, but that still needs to be regulated.
In order to follow, process, analyze and think about these issues, the Journal of Regulation (JoR),a mainly online-based bilingual publication (English-French), issues news reports, articles and thematic files.
The Journal of Regulation (JoR) issues a weekly newsletter to more than 10.000 people interested in Regulation throughout the world.
The Journal of Regulationregularly organizes public events. The last one, which is upcoming, is entitled 'Regulation, Supervision, Compliance'.
The Journal of Regulationissues its work in the RégulationsSeries, which are directed by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche and published by the Éditions Dalloz.
The Journal of Regulationoperates basing on different committees, particularly a Partners Committee including the main organisations, companies and law firms acting within the field of regulated sectors, and a Global Committee composed of the main Regulatory Authorities.
► Full reference: Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and University Jean Moulin - Lyon 3, Centre de recherche Louis Josserand : La contractualisation de la compliance : clause après clause (Compliance contractualisation: clause by clause), 25 September 2026
The symposium is under the scientific responsibility of Marie-Anne Frison-Roche and Jean-Christophe Roda.
Il will be held in French.
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To register:
🧮The event will take place at the University of Jean Moulin - Lyon 3.
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Presentation of the topic: There are numerous compliance clauses. Surprisingly little research has been done on them, which hinders the development of this practice. However, the Compliance Obligation that is so often emphasised in relation to civil liability no doubt because Compliance Law is excessively associated with sanctions, can just as easily originate from contracts and multiple clauses, since this is another way of being bound, without it being anything more than a means for the persons thus bound to fulfil their regulatory obligation.
It is therefore practice that has developed compliance clauses, the very existence of which is the subject of this symposium. By highlighting these provisions, their originality can be revealed, as well as the uniqueness conferred on them by Compliance Law and the diversity that may be required depending on criteria related to the purpose of the clauses, but also to the sector of activity or the identity of the contracting parties themselves.
From this already established practice, it is certainly the Judge who will determine its uniqueness and specificity. This case law is in its infancy because this practice is the result of compliance requirements arising from an emerging branch of Law, which is still under development.
Furthermore, the clauses examined here are not conceived from scratch, but are often adaptations of clauses familiar to lawyers, and as such may be reproduced, regulated, or even restricted or prohibited by rules that fall not only under general Contract Law, but also, clause by clause under Competition Law, Distribution Law, Consumer Law, Judicial and Procedural Law, or Private International law. The logic of Compliance Law, when it takes contractual form, does not always prevail and, in the same way that Compliance Law as a branch of Law is linked to other branches, compliance clauses, if they are to multiply and become more sophisticated, must be subject to this link.
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Speakers include:
🎤 Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, university professor, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Director of theEuropean School of Regulation and Compliance (EeRC)É
🎤 Julia Heinich, professor at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris I)
🎤 Jacques Mestre, emeritus professor at the University of Aix-Marseille, president of the French Association of Doctors of Law (AFDD)
🎤 Jean-Christophe Roda, professor at the University of Lyon 3, director of the Louis Josserand research centre
The proceedings of this symposium will form the basis of a specific chapter in the following publications:
📕Compliance et Contrat, to be published in French in the collection 📚Regulations & Compliance, co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz.
📘Compliance and Contract, to be published in English in the 📚Compliance & Regulation Serie, co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant (Larcier-Intersentia).
The College of the Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL — the French online gambling regulatory authority), decided to bring a matter concerning three licensed operators before its Sanctions Committee on December 3, 2010.
FRENCH
Fiche thématique (Jeux en ligne): première saisie de la Commission des Sanctions de l'ARJEL.
Le Collège de l'Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) a décidé le 3 décembre 2010 de saisir la Commission de sanction de l'autorité pour un cas concernant trois opérateurs.
GERMAN
Thematischer Bericht (Online-Wetten): erster Fall vor der Santionkommission der ARJEL, die französische Behörde für Online-Wettenregulierung.
Das Kollegium der Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL, die französische Behörde für Online-Wettenregulierung) hat am 3. Dezember 2010 beschlossen, einen Fall bezüglich auf drei Gesellschaften der Sanktionskommission übermittelt.
SPANISH
Informe Temático (El Juego): La primera referencia a la Comisión de sanciones del ARJEL, la Autoridad francesa de la regulación del juego en la red.
El Colegio de la Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL – la Autoridad francesa para la regulación del juego en la red), decidió traer ante el Comité de sanciones un asunto sobre tres operadores licenciados el 3 e diciembre del 2010.
ITALIAN
Relazione tematica (Scommesse): Prima consultazione del Comitato destinato ad adottare delle sanzioni della ARJEL, l’autorità francese di regolazione delle scommesse online.
Il 3 dicembre 2010, il collegio della Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL – l’autorità francese di regolazione delle scommesse online) ha deciso di sottoporre una questione riguardante tre operatori con licenza dinanzi al suo comitato destinato ad adottare delle sanzioni.
CHINESE
主题性报告：ARJEL(法国在线游戏管理局)首次向法国金融市场管理局处罚委员会提交案件
Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL-法国在线游戏管理局)于2010年12月3日会议决定将一起涉及三家许可运营商的案件交由法国金融市场管理局处罚委员会处理。
The United Kingdom is probably country of "self-regulation", many academics devote studies, regulators praise its merits, the legislation puts it in place. This is in the area of the press. The electronic media are regulated by OFCOM, but the written press is still self-regulated. British tradition remains so.
La presse britannique, dont on connait la variété du niveau, du Daily Mirror à The Economist et à propos de laquelle les scandales sont nombreux à propos des violations de vie privée et des méthodes pour acquérir les informations, est "autorégulée".
C'est pourquoi un rapport a été publié en 2012, le rapport Leveson, lui-même continuant à recommander l'autorégulation. Sur cette recommandation, a été élaborée le Press Recognition Panel (PRP), entré dans le système juridique par une "Charte royale" le 30 octobre 2013, articulé avec un organe de supervision, le Independent Monitor for the Press (IMPRESS), créé quelques mois plus tard. On ne sait si cela avait bien fonctionné, mais le 8 septembre 2014 le premier organisme est absorbé par le second.
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