A French Bill on banking and Financial Regulation was registered with the Presidency of the “Assemblée Nationale” (the lower house of the French Parliament, the National Assembly) on December 16th 2009, and plans for the creation of a council on financial regulation and systemic risk.
On 18th of September 2020, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) published a report about the impact of Rule of Law on Economic Growth.
The EESC defines the Rule of Law as the obligation to "all public powers act within the constraints laid down by law, in accordance with the values of democracy and fundamental rights, and under the control of independent and impartial courts". According to the Committee, the Rule of Law thus defined is favorable and even necessary to a durable economic growth especially because instability of regulations, absence of guarantee of labor and property rights, discrimination or non-application of contracts poorly favors or are detrimental for investments and economic agents' productive activities. The EESC observes by the way that countries which respect the Rule of Law grow more rapidly than those which do not respect it. The Committee also insists on the destructive effect of corruption which destroys public services, public action, public institutions on the long run and confidence, increasing inequalities.
Although EESC approves the actions of European Commission to advance Rule of Law in the Union, it however invites the Commission to continue its efforts by giving a more important place to jurisdictions and by protecting better media freedom in a context of rising autocratic forces in Eastern Europe.
We can learn three lessons from this report:
The common interest of European Union States to guarantee the Rule of Law. Indeed, Rule of Law is not only written in article 2 of TFEU and has been consecrated by CJEU case law, it is also a condition of economic progress.
The fight against corruption must be the object of a redoubled effort. In this perspective, Compliance Law is able to offer appropriate innovating legal tools.
To a definition of Regulation and Compliance Law as a simple process of application of mechanical legal rules, it is necessary to substitute a definition of Regulation and Compliance Law based on the notion of "monumental goals" and people protection. In this perspective, these branches of Law would prove to be powerful tools in the service of the advancement of the rule of law in the European space.
In response to the scandal of the drug called the" Médiator", politics, believing that the regulatory authority of medicinal product had not correctly done his job, responded by an act on December, 29 2011 providing the replacement of Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé (Afssaps-) (French Agency for the Safety of Health Product) by The Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament (ANSM) (National Agency for safety of medicinal product). The implementing decree organising the regulatory authority was released on April 29, 2012, that allowing the effective implementation of the new authority on the scheduled date: 1 may 2012. There is continuity between the two authorities: it is the same Professor of medicine who is the executive chairman, who was appointed at the head of the Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé (Afssaps-) (French Agency for the Safety of Health Product) following the case of the" Médiator", and became the executive chairman of the (National Agency for safety of medicinal product). But the new authority must strengthen its own expertise; this allows therefore an increased autonomy to avoid capture by asymmetry of information for the benefit of pharmaceutical laboratories. The new Act also wants to avoid the links of interests, which lead to the same result of ineffectiveness of the control, and with a focus on transparency as an operating principle.
A simple question: be regulator, is it a profession?
As soon as one asks the question, it should be down. Indeed, the time has passed when the regulator was a natural person. Today, in most cases, the regulator takes the form of a Regulatory Authority, that is to say an entity with or without legal personality, incorporated in the State or professional.
Individuals appear as a member of the Authority, even if it is true that the President of the Regulatory Authority often has a very importan role!footnote-17.
The choice of Commissioners is crucial to the independence and effectiveness of the regulatory authority. It is appropriate that the person has "authority" over the area, must be respected and participates effectively in the collective action of the College.
Let us try to recall the two sets of criteria to determine how one thinks the "good regulator" before taking such case the appointment of Mr. Yann Padova as a new member of the College of the Commission de Régulation de l'Énergie (French Energy Regulatory Commission).
Reading the press, for example Les Echos January 16, 2015, we learn that Standard & Poor's will sign an agreement of $ 1 billion with the US administration to avoid a trial.
One can only be amazed or even upset.
First, the agreement is not yet concluded. It would be in a month or two. How is it that we already know? Secondly, contracts, because the transaction is a contract listed by the Civil Code, are not intended to be public. How is it that we already know everything? The person who gave the information "was keen to remain anonymous." It would have suspected ......
Third, it is true that the regulation of rating agencies is a big issue. Special texts have been taken but academics think the right tools stay missing and that is probably the liability, general legal instrument, which is the most appropriate.
But the responsibility of commitment requires a trial, evidence, respect for the rights of defense, due processs, legality of offenses and penalties.. Here, $ 1 billion is paid by the company only to avoid that opens a lawsuit against it. The allegation is the rating agency would have underestimated the subprime risk.
But on one hand everyone says that the rating agency has actually done the facts allegued since payroll so that the file doesn't open. On the other hand, and from the perspective of regulating the information that would be out of the trial, a trial being a form of crisis, will not come out.
So this sort of industry fof "Deals of Justice", apart from the fact that some describe the phenomenon as a "racket", isn't a "decriminalization" of regulation for a "civilized regulation" through the transaction contract. On the contrary, this movement that is spreading constitutes an increased repression whic diminishes rights of defense for the operator and information for the sector.
Asymmetry is a key concept of regulation. Indeed, a competitive market works well when operators are in symmetrical relationships, ie there is no structural obstacle which prevents an agent from increasing his power solely on his merits (" competition by merits "). If there is an asymmetry, for example because a sector is monopolistic and the legislator has just declared it open to competition, there is a temporary asymmetry between the installed companies, the incumbent operators and the willing companies to enter this new market, the "new entrants". Historical operators, such as in the telecommunications or energy sector, when they were opened to competition by European directives, transposed by national laws (in french Law in 1996 for telecommunications and gas, in 2000 for electricity), benefit (sometimes referred to as grandfather clause), in particular because they have all the clients or all the know-how or all the patents, and that, in fact, the competitors can not enter the market. It is then necessary to establish a regulator also a priori temporary itself to establish to forceps the competition, by an asymmetrical regulation.
Asymmetric regulation, particularly applied in Great Britain at the time of the liberalization of the aforementioned sectors, means that the regulator will systematically favor new entrants, for example by dispossessing the incumbents for their benefit to make them on the market. Today, in the telecommunications sector, competition, notably on mobiles, is established, but the regulator does not intend to leave its place to disappear and today supports "symmetric regulation" .... Instead, it acts as a specialized competition authority.
Asymmetry may not be temporary but definitive, when inequality between operators, regardless of merit, does not come from a context of liberalization but from a structural failure of the market. For example, there are transport networks, transport of passengers or goods, railways or airstrip for airplanes, data or voice communication networks, pipes where gas or electricity circulate, etc., which belong to a single operator because they constitute economically natural monopolies. Under these conditions, the competitors of the monopoly must nevertheless have fair and effective access to this service and a regulator must necessarily be established for the effectiveness of that right (see Access).
Moreover, the Nobel Prize of Joseph Stiglitz (2001) was justified by his work on the asymmetry of information on certain markets, in particular the financial markets on which companies offer securities. Through the theory of the agency, it appears that the ordinary partners or ordinary investors have less information than the managers, even though the latter have the function of making decisions that bring the most to the former. But information asymmetry offers managers an "information rent" that allows them to offer many benefits and transfer risks to others. Regulators, in particular banking and financial regulators, are needed to combat information asymmetry. Transparency is one of the procedural means to combat this asymmetry. The financial and banking crisis of 2008 showed the extent of this asymmetry and, in fact, the inability of regulators to remedy it, for example, the British government estimated in 2010 that it was the financial regulator itself that was responsible for the crisis for not having sufficiently watched over conflicts of interest. In general, the global financial crisis was often later characterized as a crisis of regulators and regulation.
Personal Data, as they are information, are Compliance Tools. They represent a precious resource for firms which must implement a vigilance plan in order to prevent corruption, money laundering or terrorism financing, for examples. It is the reason why personal data are the angular stone of "Compliance by design" systems. However, the use of these data cannot clear the firm of its simultaneous obligation to protect these same personal data, that is also a "monumental goal" of Compliance Law.
In order to be able to exploit these data in an objective of Compliance and protecting them in the same time, the digital firm Apple adopted for example new dispositions in order to the exploitation of the Identifier For Advertisers (IDFA) integrated in the iPad and in the iPhone and broadly used by targeted advertising firms, is conditioned to the consumer's consent.
Facebook reacted to this new disposition explaining that such measures will restrict the access to data for advertisers who will suffer from that. Facebook suspects Apple to block the access to advertisers in order to develop its own advertising tool. Facebook guaranteed to advertisers who work with it that it will not take similar measures and that it will always favor consultation before decision making in order to concile sometimes divergent interests.
We can sleep and already make some remarks:
GDPR imposing to companies that they guarantee a minimal level of protection for personal data does not apply in the United-States. It is then possible that Apple acted through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), more than through legal obligation.
The mode of regulation used here is the "conversational regulation" theorized by Julia Black. Indeed, regulators let the forces in presence discuss.
This "conversational regulation" does not seem to be very efficient in this case and an intervention of administrative authorities or of judges could be justified via Competition Law, Regulation Law or Compliance Law, knowing that Competition Law will favor access right to information and Regulation or Compliance Law private life right.
The whole paradox of Compliance Law rests in the equilibrium between circulation of information and secret.
The European Commission published on April 11, 2012, a follow-up and summary report of on the application of the third directive "Anti-Money Laundering " which gives a community value to on international standards adopted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This is to protect the financial system against the money laundering. The report assesses the effectiveness of the application of the directive and points out the need for change. The Commission requests that the standards for the detection of risk of money laundering are better targeted and oriented in the gambling sector. It also suggests that tax offences be regarded as offences of money laundering. As individuals, the report requires to banks and other professionals to increase their due diligences requirements. It also covers the "persons politically exposed", that is - to say those may be corrupt. The report finally requests a special assessment on the application of the Directive to independent legal professionals, including lawyers, subject to the legal obligation to report .
This regulation aims in particular to develop competition in an important domestic market. For the development of competition, should be encouraged not only increase in consumption, new uses, innovation, but also the competition between suppliers.
For this, the portability of telephone numbers is essential. We find this issue of portability in other sectors, such as financial or energy sectors, but it is in the area of the phone portability turned into right because it is through the number that the person is called, or classified, or recognized
This portability is imposed with difficulty by regulators. The situation in India demonstrates.
The principle of number portability in the mobile phone sector was made by a regulation in 2009 by the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations of 23 September 2009, the eighth addressing this issue.
Almost every year, a regulation adds to the previous regulations on this point. Thus, February 25, 2015, the regulator adopted a regulation 4 pages carrying the 6th amendment of the original text.
After the new system adopted by the regulator at the request of the Government who sent a letter to this effect November 23, 2014, as apparatus shown to increase the effectiveness of portability, it is mandatory that from may 3, 2015, any subscriber can change operator while keeping his phone, regardless of his place of residence in the country.
The difficulty comes precisely from the geographical vastness of the country, divided into 22 telecom service areas (called "circles"), the customer physically moving from one to another still having difficulty keeping his number.
Beyond the difficulty of passing the enactment of a principle to the reality of its application, since 6 years apart from each other, here we measure the importance of geography in Regulation.
Regulation can't be thought of the same way in the countries of relatively small size and huge countries as India, China or Brazil.
