The President of the Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques et des postes (Arcep –French Electronic and Postal Communications Regulation Authority) presents his vision of Telecommunications Regulation in favour of Network Neutrality.
A recommendation concerning professional “good practices” in pharmaceutical treatments issued by the Haute Autorité de la Santé (French Healthcare Regulator) was attacked before the Council of State by an association. It was invalidated by Council of State decision on April 27, 2011 for violation of the principal of impartiality, because members of the regulator’s working group had interests in the pharmaceutical industry.
ITALIAN
Relazione di settore (Salute): Una raccomandazione sulle “buone prassi” pubblicata dall’Autorità di regolazione in material di salute è stata annullata a ragione della sua parzialità
Una raccomandazione relativa alle “buone prassi” nei trattamenti farmaceutici resa dalla Haute Autorité de la Santé (l’autorità francese di regolazione in materia di salute) era stata contestata da un’associazione dinanzi al Consiglio di Stato. Il 27 aprile 2011, il Consiglio di Stato ha annullato tale raccomandazione in quanto resa in violazione del principio d’imparzialità, diversi membri del gruppo di lavoro nominati dall’autorità di regolazione avevano interessi personali nell’industria farmaceutica.
SPANISH
Informe Temático (Salud): Una recomendación concerniendo las “buenas prácticas” publicada en por el regulador francés de la salud fue invalidada por razones de parcialidad.
Una recomendación concerniendo las “buenas prácticas” en tratamientos farmacéuticos publicada por la Haute Autorité de la Santé (el Regulador francés de la salud) fue atacada frente al Consejo de Estado por una asociación. Fue invalidada por el Consejo de Estado en una decisión del 27 de abril del 2011 por violación del principio de la imparcialidad, porque miembros del grupo de trabajo del regulador tenían ciertos intereses en la industria farmacéutica.
PORTUGUESE
Informe setorial (Saúde): Uma recomendação relativa a “boas práticas” publicada pelo regulador francês de saúde foi anulada por motivos de parcialidade.
Uma recomendação relativa a “boas práticas” em tratamentos farmacêuticos adotada pela Haute Autorité de la Santé (Regulador francês de saúde) foi atacada perante o Conselho de Estado por uma associação. Ela foi invalidada pela decisão do Conselho de Estado de 27 de abril de 2011 por violação do princípio da imparcialidade, pois alguns membros do grupo de trabalho do regulador tinham interesses na indústria farmacêutica.
Revogação – Ônus da prova – Conflito de interesses – Deontologia – Ex post – Boas práticas – Guia – Hard Law – Haute Autorité de la Santé (Regulador Francês da Saúde) – Imparcialidade – Independência – Legislador – Responsabilidade – Programa de tratamento médico – Obrigação – Parcialidade – Indústria farmacêutica – Recomendação – Ciência – Autoridade científica – Dados científicos – Grupo de trabalho.*
* Em The Journal of Regulation, estas palavras-chave são fornecidas pelo Editor e não pelo Autor.
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.
The world production of oil is largely coordinated by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and especially by its Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC). On 15th of July 2020, this Committee decides to reduce the world production of oil in order to maintain a certain price stability in a context of restricted demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, such a stability can be maintained only if each member respects this decision and effectively reduce its production level. This meeting of 15th of July also aimed to get member's conformity. In order to get this conformity, the JMMC declared that it will use "name and shame", shaming countries which do not respect the Committee's declaration and naming those which respect it. A second meeting, on 19th of August 2020, reminded to non-compliant countries their obligation and urged them to comply before the 28th of August.
We can observe two things:
The term used by the Committee is "conformity" and not "compliance", which implies less adherence to "monumental goals than the mechanical respect of formal rules.
In an self-regulation system where there is not supposed to be a need for "conformity", the need for it is a clue that this self-regulation is malfunctioning.
The European Directive of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnology inventions excludes the human embryo of the mechanism of the patent. A patent is filed in Germany on purified brain stem cells. German Federal Patent Court cancels the patent, because it would be on the human being. The one who filed the patent appeals, arguing that a text that refuses the patentability of the embryo is not about stem cells. Asked for a preliminary ruling by the National Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivers, in a Grand Chamber a judgment on October, 18 2011, asking that the Directive by designating the human embryo has designated the mechanisms of cell division. This extensive conception leaves a possible place for the stem cells. They can therefore be also excluded from patentability.
Nomination of the members of the Haute autorité pour la diffusion d’oeuvres et la protection de droits sur Internet (Hadopi – High Authority for the Dissemination of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet).
Regulation of the digital world, we agree on its necessity, we talk about it a lot but it is difficult to do it.
The stakes are multiple: management of innovation, protection of people, treatment of different sorts of powers, future of the human being, the Politics and the Judge being like a bullet that ricochets between these 4 subjects.
It then rediscovers that the first "regulators" are the Governments and that the first modality of the Regulation Law is the taxation.
Notably in the digital field and even more so in the face of GAFA.
Indeed, the 4 American companies, Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, admit the need for rules but propose self-regulation or co-regulation. These would include not only their own behavior, but also those of others, including the fight against terrorism. Maybe, when one is stronger than the States, he should substitute himself for their core business....
Undoubtedly being dispossessed of the regalian, Europe today demands "accounts" to the GAFA in the literal sense of the term. Indeed, the French and German governments will table in September a tax proposal specific to the GAFA, the fruit of which will come back to the countries where they earn their income.
Concerned companies replied that in the tax system everyone has the right to be skilled and to organize at the best, so long as one does not fall into the abuse. In accordance with this legal conception, the French administrative high Court (Conseil d’État) has just recalled it in an important decision to their benefit.
In August 2017, the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Lemaire, justified the reiteration of his will to tax them, raising this issue at European level in the name of "distributive justice", the Law being defined as what gives everyone his share. This is a strong but dangerous argument, for while it is true that in the very function of taxation, correlated with public finances, the redistributive function is essential, tax optimization becomes staggering.
In a more convincing and regulatory way, this measure of equity is presented as correlated to the construction of the European digital market. It is an economic conception. To the extent that European taxation is still embryonic, its link with such a construction would make it possible to see in vivo the strength of the tax tool in Regulation Law, more than ever distant from Competition Law.
It is in this context, and because the European Digital Market must be built at forceps, since the GAFA will benefit from it, but also must participate in its construction, that such an investment sharing is justified.
🧮The event will take place at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris I) on 15 October 2026.
Il will be held in French.
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Presentation of the topic: While Contract Law, in its common rules expressed by the "general theory of contracts", is often considered to be the most developed branch of Law in practice and the most studied at university, at first glance it seems to be given little consideration when it comes to compliance matter.
This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the company, which is at the heart of the action expected of it—action that is expected to be powerful (since it affects the collective future) and diversified (since it concerns all systems beyond the company's direct activity)—seems above all to have the status of a subject of law. This is exacerbated if, by mistakenly confusing the latter terms, we only talk about "conformity" and assert that it is simply for businesses a matter of "complying with the regulations that apply to them", which then leaves little room for contractual initiative. This would be associated only with Ethics, a normative order that also differs from a contract, which is a binding legal act.
The relationship between Contract and many sorts of documents, standards and ethical acts that are so numerous in compliance techniques, to which we can add the soft law produced by courts, regulators, supervisors and the companies themselves, is therefore an open question. This delicate reconciliation, which the terms "CSR" and "Governance" express without referring to very precise legal definitions, can cause difficulties in relation to general Contract Law: thus, the "commitments" that punctuate the techniques and behaviours that make up the "culture of compliance" have a central place in Compliance Law. However, their place, if not their equivalence with the contract, is not established, and may even be excluded. This too is an open question.
Based on these initial questions, it appears that in order to gain a firmer footing in the analysis of the practices of companies that include compliance clauses into multiple contracts, we must observe that compliance may consist of a comprehensive service that is the very subject of a specific contract, the "compliance contract, or even assist in the conception that judges may, or must, develop in their office when they are seized of "contractual litigation involving Compliance", we must return to common contract law.
Indeed, if we stop viewing Compliance Law solely through the prism of punishment, if we do not limit it to the "detection and prevention" of fraudulent behaviour which, if it occurred, would be punished, the contract does not have the same place in practice. In this initial restrictive conception of Compliance Law based on sanctions, simply by moving from ex post to ex ante, the company remains subject to the regulations that apply to it, and the contract would be just one of the ways in which it fulfils its legal compliance obligation.
However, the obligation of compliance can also be considered to have its legitimate source in the Contract, which in general termes is based on the autonomy of will and all its consequences (contractual freedom, binding force, effect on third parties, etc.), with the Principle of Compliance fitting into it as a second pillar linked to the first pillar, which is the Principle of free Competition.
It is therefore very useful to better understand practices by comparing the technical principles of general Contract Law with Compliance Principles, such as concern for others that contractors may pursue independently of any regulatory requirement (these others who are distant in space and time), preservation of systems, the obligation to provide evidence, etc.
This is the subject of this symposium which, according to the classic dichotomy of contractual formation and contractual execution, revisits the contractual thread based on the founding principles of autonomy and freedoms, binding force and its relativity, the meeting of consents, groups of contracts, and regulatory contracts often drawn up to implement compliance policies. Enforcement and contractual liability under general Contract Law are themselves coloured in a unique way when a compliance concern or goal has been included in the contract or is implied by it.
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Speakers include:
🎤 Nicolas Bargue professor at Panthéon-Sorbonne University,
🎤 Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, university professor, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the European School of Regulation and Compliance (EeRC)
🎤 Julia Heinich, professor at Panthéon-Sorbonne University
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The proceedings of this symposium will form the basis of a specific chapter in the following publications:
