The European Commission published a Green Paper in September 2010 on Audit Policy, in order to give its opinion on the Lessons from the Crisis.From a systemic perspective of financial markets' stability, the Commission analyzes the role of the auditor, the internal structure of audit firms, the concentration of the audit market, and the possibility of a European market for auditing. But, what the Commission presents as a neutral description is actually a series of ideological stances, which are tenable, but also debatable. Thus, the Green Paper makes auditing out to be a structural element of financial markets, which shatters auditing's uniqueness, while attributing it a structural and systemic role, which is questionable. It then requires regulatory tools to open the auditing market to more competition, which will, in reality, expose it to the pressures of demand and lower the efficiency of auditing missions. It would be better to reinforce regulatory mechanisms towards security and conflicts of interest, rather than towards competition, which corresponds to the traditional French model of audit regulation.
FRENCH
La Commission européenne a lancé en septembre 2010 un Livre vert la Politique de l’audit, pour que soient tirée à son propos les Leçons de la Crise. C’est donc dans une perspective systémique de stabilité des marchés financiers que les questions sont posées par la Commission, concernant l’auditeur, l’organisation des sociétés d’audit, la concentration du marché de l’audit et l’hypothèse d’un marché européen de l’audit. Mais ce que la Commission présente comme une description neutre est une réalité une série de prises de positions idéologiques, soutenables mais aussi discutables. Ainsi, le Livre Vert présente l’audit comme un élément structurel des marchés financiers, ce qui brise l’unicité de l’audit, tandis qu’elle lui confère un rôle structurel et systémique, ce qui est discutable. Elle requiert ensuite des outils de régulations pour ouvrir à une plus forte concurrence le marché de l’audit, ce qui va en réalité l’exposer à la pression de la demande et abaisser l’effectivité des missions de l’audit, alors qu’il faut renforcer les outils de régulations, non pas par rapport à la concurrence mais par rapport à la sécurité et aux conflits d’intérêts, ce à quoi correspond le modèle traditionnel français.
GERMAN
Artikel: Kritische Analyse des Grünbuches der Europäischen Kommission im Bereich Abschlussprüfung: Eine problematische Definition vom systemrelevanten Agent und eine Illustration des Gegensatzes zwischen Regulierung und Wettbewerb.
Die Europäische Kommission hat im September 2010 ein Grünbuch zur Rolle der Abschlussprüfung veröffentlicht, um ihre Stellungnahme über die Lehre der Krise zu verbreiten. Die Kommission analysiert die Rolle des Abschlussprüfers, die innere Struktur von Abschlussprufüngsunternehmen, die Marktkonzentration des Prüfungsmarktes und die Möglichkeiten der Entstehung eines europäischen Abschlussprüfungsmarktes aus der systemischen Perspektive der Finanzmarktstabilität. Aber was die Europäische Kommission als eine neutrale Schilderung darstellt trägt eher mit sich eine Reihe von ideologischen Einstellungen, die zwar haltbar aber auch strittig sind. So stellt das Grünbuch die Abschlüssprufung als Strukturelement für die Finanzmärkte, was die Einheit der Abschlussprüfung zerbricht. Laut des Grünbuches spielt sie auch eine systemische und strukturelle Rolle, was auch fragwürdig ist. Der Prufüngsmarkt sollte auch zu mehr Wettbewerb durch Regulierungsmassnahmen eröffnet werden, was in der Tat dem Markt dem Drück der Anfrage aussetzen wird, und die Effizienz von Abschlussprüfungsaufträgen einschränken wird. Es wäre besser, Regulierungsmechanismen mit Hinsicht auf Sicherheit und Interessenkonflikten, eher als Wettbewerb, zu verfestigen, was eigentlich dem französichen Modell der Prüfungsregulierung entsprechen würde.
ITALIAN
Articolo: Analisi critica del Libro verde della Commissione europea sulla politica in materia di revisione dei conti: una definizione problematica dell'agente sistemico ed un'illustrazione dell'opposizione tra regolazione e concorrenza.
Nel mese di settembre 2010, la Commissione europea ha pubblicato un libro verde sulla politica in materia di audit (revisione dei conti) per emettere il suo parere sulle "Lezioni dalla crisi". Con una prospettiva sistemica della stabilità dei mercati finanziari, la Commissione analizza il ruolo del revisore dei conti, la struttura interna degli studi di revisione dei conti, la concentrazione del mercato dell'audit e la possibilità di strutturare un mercato europeo della revisione dei conti. Tuttavia, quello che la commissione presenta come un dato di fatto, in realtà è il frutto di una riflessione ideologica, sostenibile ma sicuramente discutibile. Il Libro verde rende la revisione dei conti, un'attività strutturale dei mercati finanziari, la cui unicità è quindi frazionata, e gli attribuisce un ruolo strutturale e sistemico, di per sé discutibile. Inoltre auspica con l'intervento di meccanismi di regolazione, un'apertura del mercato dell'audit al fine di garantire una concorrenza maggiore, che sarà esposta alle pressioni della domanda e diminuirà l'efficienza degli incarichi di revisione dei conti. Sarebbe meglio rafforzare i meccanismi di regolazione al fine di raggiungere una sicurezza maggiore ed evitare conflitti d’interessi, invece di auspicare una maggiore concorrenza, cosa che corrisponde al modello francese tradizionale della regolazione del mercato della revisione dei conti.
SPANISH
Artículo: Análisis crítico del Libro Verde de la Comisión Europea sobre su política de auditoría: una definición problemática sobre el agente del sistema y una ilustración sobre la oposición entre regulación y competencia.
En septiembre del 2010, la Comisión Europea publicó El Libro Verde sobre la política de auditoría para proveer su opinión sobre Las Lecciones de la Crisis. Desde una perspectiva sistemática de la estabilidad de los mercados financieros, la Comisión analiza el papel del auditor, la estructura interna de empresas de auditoría, la concentración del mercado de auditoría y la posibilidad de un mercado europea de auditoría. Pero, lo que la Comisión presenta como una descripción neutral es, de hecho, una serie de declaraciones ideológicas, que son defendibles, pero también discutibles. Por lo tanto, el Informe Verde describe a la auditoría como un elemento estructural de los mercados financieros, lo cual destruye la cualidad única de la auditoría, mientras que le atribuye un rol estructural y sistemático, lo cual es cuestionable. También requiere de instrumentos regulatorios para abrir el mercado de auditoría a una competencia más substancial, lo cual, en realidad, lo expone a las presiones de demanda y disminuye la eficacia de las misiones de auditoría. Sería mejor reforzar los mecanismo regulatorios hacia la seguridad y conflicto de intereses, y no hacia la competencia, lo cual corresponde al modelo tradicional francés de la regulación de auditoría.
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 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit strikes down a decision that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the American telecommunications regulation agency, had taken against an Internet service provider, on the grounds that the FCC is incompetent to impose the theory of network neutrality on Internet service providers.
The European Court of Justice handed down a judgement on September 9th 2010 in which it ruled that two criteria of the Austrian Glücksspielgesetz (the Federal Law on Games of Chance) violated articles 43 and 49 EC, that is to say the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services.
For example, if one says what a bitcoin is, then one assigns to it the regime which corresponds to this "nature" that one has thus said;
One could say that the "token" that it constitutes corresponds to nothing of what it existed before. In this case, their creation, storage, management, sale, loan, purchase does not correspond to any particular category that pre-existed. They therefore come under what is called "the category unnamed".
It is then in a liberal system the vacuum of liberty that applies to it. In a system of liberty, it is contractual freedom, freedom which attaches to the property right, the articulation between the contract and the property being sufficient. Technology can establish such a qualification, because the risk inherent in a system of freedom is also borne by the blockchain mechanism. Indeed, by the spread of risk on the one hand, and the safety of machines on the other, there would be no need to worry, and the principle of freedom could give credence to the idea that the "token" would be a sui generis category.
But central banks and financial regulators are probably not convinced and prefer to qualify by bringing the "token" to a pre-existing category, which automatically triggers the legal regime. It is well known that the art of qualification consists in choosing from among the attainable qualifications the one which will allow the application of the regime which is the most adequate to satisfy the aim which one wishes to attain. In terms of regulation, governed entirely by goals, qualification is therefore primarily a matter of strategy.
Now, to affirm that the bitcoin is a sui generis object amounts to not regulating its emission, usages and intermediations, not to control those who make use of it. It amounts to taking away the merits of self-regulation.
This was excluded.
First of all by the Central Banks. Bitcoins and other tokens, based on the mechanical security of the blockchain, can be described as "money" when it is a matter of their acquisition to allow people to access other goods. The central bankers retained the qualification of "currency", which does not prohibit their issuance but which justifies the application of banking Regulation.
Then by the Financial Regulators. Indeed, the same tokens of securities and financial instruments can be described when they are issued by persons who issue them to raise funds, buyers bringing money not to acquire other things but in consideration of the future value of the undertaking which issued them. On July 25, 2017, the SEC therefore classified them as securities and applied all of the financial law in order to protect these investments and the capital markets.
Once again, we measure that the norm of the Regulation resides in these aims and that on the other hand its main tool is in the qualification of the various activities which are "new" only if the Regulator wants it
In The Journal of Regulation the summaries’ translation are done by the Editors and not by the authors
ENGLISH :
In order to establish a competitive energy market, the distribution infrastructure, as a monopolistic segment of energy networks, should be demonopolized. Instruments of economic regulation, which are often attributed ex ante character, are put in place to open the market and enable competitive forces. Unbundling is specific for it may also represent an ex post measure of a structural nature, exerted by competition protection authorities.
FRENCH
Afin d’établirun marché énergétiquecompétitif,l’infrastructure de distribution,en tant qu’il est un segmentmonopolistiquedes réseaux d’énergie,devrait êtrelibéralisé.Les instruments derégulation économique, quisont souvent attribués d’une façonex ante,sont mises en placepour ouvrir le marchéet rendent possibles les forces concurrentielles.Le dégroupage estspécifique,car il peutaussi représenterune mesure ex postde nature structurelle,exercée parles autorités de protectionde la concurrence.
ITALIAN
Per costruire un mercato concorrenziale dell’energia, le infrastrutture di distribuzione, in quanto segmento monopolistico delle reti di energia, dovrebbero essere liberalizzate. A tal fine, sono applicati dei meccanismi di regolazione economica, spesso previsti ex ante, per aprire il mercato e permettere le forze concorrenziali. L’unbundling è particolare, in quanto potrebbe anche costituire un provvedimento ex post di natura strutturale, utilizzato dalle autorità di tutela della libera concorrenza.
A decision handed down by the French Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation) validates a right of first refusal contract whose purpose was to prevent financial speculation on the property being sold. This decision, political in nature, opens new possibilities for using the contract as an instrument for regulating real-estate prices.
Like every year since the adoption of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) and especially its Office of the Whistleblowers (OWB) handed to the Congress of the United-States a report about the success of its program concerning whistleblowers, especially estimated with the amount of financial rewards granted to them during the year. This report especially presents the amount granted to whistleblowers, the quality of the collected information and the efficacy of SEC's whistleblowers' protection process.
If Americans condition the effectiveness of whistleblowing to the remuneration of whistleblowers, Europeans oppose the "ethical whistleblower" who shares information for the love of Law to the "bounty hunter" uniquely motivated by financial reward and favor the former to the later, as it is proven in the French Law Sapin II of 2016 (which do not propose financial reward to whistleblowers) or the British Public Interest Disclosure of 1998 (which just propose a financial compensation of the whistleblower's losses linked to whistleblowing).
However, American and European conceptions are not so far from each other. As United-States, Europe has a real care for legal effectivity, even if, because of their different legal traditions, Americans favor effectivity of rights while European favor effectivity of Law. If it places effectivity at the center of its preoccupations, Europe should conceive with less aversion the possibility to financially incite whistleblowers. Moreover, United-States and Europe share the same common willingness to protect whistleblowers and if rewarding would enable a better protection, then Europe should not reject it, as shows the recent declarations of the French Defenders of Rights. It is not excluded that both systems converges in a close future.
