It is believed that the lexical distinction between two words necessarily involves the allusion to two different things. In this view, economic regulation differs from financial regulation. Based on what financial regulation is, which is not reduced to an addition of rules and regulations but is a set of mechanisms, institutions, decisions, principles and rules revolving around risk, competition law could be used as a means for financial regulation, although it is usually solely applied to ordinary markets of goods and services. But a new ambiguity has surfaced between financial regulation and economic regulation. Therefore, a wall between economic regulation and financial regulation cannot be built on the single difference between the “economic sector” such as the market of goods and services, and the “financial sector”. A more sophisticated partition could take into account the notion of « individual risk ».
GERMAN
Der Unterschied zwischen wirtschaftliche und finanzielle Regulierung.
Normalerweise weist ein lexikalischer Unterschied zwischen zwei Wörter darauf hin, dass man von zwei verschiedene Sachen spricht. Also sind die wirtschaftliche und die finanzielle Regulierung unterschiedlich. Die finanzielle Regulierung ist nicht eine ledigliche Addition von Gesetzen und Anordnungen, sondern eine Zusammenstellung von Mechanismen, Institutionen, Entscheidungen, Prinzipien und regeln, die sich mit dem Thema Risiko beschäftigen. Anhand dieser Tatsache könnte das Wettbewerbsrecht, das normalerweise erst für gewöhnlichen Waren- und Dienstleistungenmärkte gebraucht ist, auch im finanziellen Bereich Anwendung finden. Jetzt aber hat sich eine neue Zweideutigkeit zwischen wirtschaftlicher und finanzieller Regulierung entwickelt. Infolgedessen kann eine Begrenzung zwischen beide Regulierungen nicht nur aufgrund den Unterschied zwischen dem wirtschaftlichen (wie z.B. der Güter- und Dienstleistungensmarkt) und dem finanziellen Sektor. Eine anspruchsvollere Unterscheidung könnte den Begriff "individuellen Risiko" integrieren.
SPANISH
La distinción entre la Regulación económica y la Regulación financiera.
Se cree que la distinción léxica entre dos palabras necesariamente involucra la alusión a dos cosas. Teniendo esto en cuenta, la regulación económica difiere de la regulación financiera. Basándonos en lo que es la regulación financiera, lo cual no se reduce a una simple adición de reglas y regulaciones pero por lo contrario está compuesta por una serie de mecanismos, instituciones, decisiones, principios y reglas que dependen del riesgo, se podría decir que la ley de la competencia puede ser utilizado para la regulación financiera, aunque normalmente solo se aplica a mercados ordinario de bienes y servicios. Pero una nueva ambigüedad se ha dado entre la regulación financiera y la regulación económica. Por lo tanto, es imposible construir una pared entre la regulación económica y la regulación financiera basado simplemente en la diferencia entre el ‘sector financiero’ como lo es el mercado de bienes y servicios y el sector financiero. Una partición más sofisticada podría tomar en cuenta la noción del “riesgo individual.”
Published by Oxford University Press (OUF), the collective book, Public Accountability, edited by Mark Bovens, Robert Goodin and Thomas Schillemann, consists of 43 contributions.
Few strictly focus on issues of regulatory matters. One can still quote the article by Colin Scott on Independent Regulators or those of Christie Hayne, Steven E. Salterio and Paul L. Posner and Shahan Asif on auditing (Accounting and Auditing; Audit Institutions).
The subject of most of the contributions is rather the necessary renewal of the management of the State, public governance incorporating this new way of "accountability," which explains the book title : itself: Public Accountability. But as we know that the line between public and private is more porous than ever, we can appreciate that the bookk extends its thoughts to the governance of private organizations or non-profit private sector by some contributions.
Indeed, the fact that Accountability is what is common to the Regulation and Governance. This is the first sentence of the book : "Accountability is the buzzword of modern governance".
Probably because of accountability has become a central concept, as shown in the introductory contribution, these are the articles that confront the most general elements such as "time" (Accountability and Time), "crisis" (Accountability for Crise) or "trust" (Accountability and trust), which are the most instructive for the future.
Thus, despite its collective character, the book is very consistent and often takes a critical tone about this invasion of public space by the will of accoutability, the authors emphasizing the "deficits", the failures and especially thet prohibitively expensive of this mechanism.
It would come to regret the simple mechanism of hierarchical rule to which a nostalgic contribution is devoted, which describes how operated the State before we apply to it the State the agency theory.
So it is a practical book, complete, critical and prospective, of great interest.
The "Société de Législation comparée" (Society of Comparative Legislation) publishes the acts of a symposium.
The notion of "service of general economic interest" was developed by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, before the Treaty, including the Lisbon Treaty and its Protocol 26, give it its place.
Thus, member States, as demonstrated by the collective work, must take into consideration, this European doctrine, that balances competition and public service, and no longer develop national concept of utilities ignorant of legal developments in Law of the European Union.
The Regulator itself issued the amount of the award to a whistleblower for having providing it with information. Why is that? One would usually take a lower profile when awarding this much money ($17m) to an informer… Conversely, the Regulator immediately and publicly announced it in a press release, which pretty looked like a tender offer for further denunciations. It even included a link for everyone to access the whistleblower program—which is easily funded, since the awards are charged on the fines imposed on the convicted operators thanks to the information given.
The reason for this is that information from whistleblowers is not merely indicative, nor a second-best option; it is central to Regulation, since it leads the Regulator to get information people within the system (i.e., insiders) deliberately chooses to ‘blow’ (in fact, not only do informers blow the whistle—they often immediately provide the Regulator with substantial information).
The press release includes justifications for the Regulator’s behaviour, as the SEC openly considers that rewarding whistleblowers is the most efficient way for the Regulator to open or to resolve investigations. The Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement stated indeed that “company insiders are uniquely positioned to protect investors and blow the whistle on a company’s wrongdoing by providing key information to the SEC so we can investigate the full extent of the violations”.
This highlights the ambivalence of insiders. Accordingly, they need to be ‘inside’ the system to be ‘knowledgeable’ and, consequently, obtain privileged information. On the one hand, should they use this information for themselves, then they would face prosecution for market abuse; on the other hand, however, if they use it to stir up the Regulator and shift its attention towards the whistle they’re blowing, then they may earn just as much money, if not more, than if they had behaved in a way that would have led them to prison.
The stage is thus set for the "business of virtue" to thrive.
This is the drama of the summer and the case of the Mistigri: in what game drag one that will drop the player? Indeed, it pretends to discover that the purely declarative Libor system works by the good of those who declare, namely the banks. If one day a child said that the King is naked... This day was June 28, 2012, when the Financial Services Authority condemned the Barclays for manipulation of course. Since then, is the head, the bulk of support as the other? Thus, the FSA condemns. Well takes it, since the Government asked him to consider a reform of the Libor.
On 10 August, the FSA makes first conclusions, to an increase in the powers of the FSA. But the English Parliament responded on 18 August, stating that if the FSA had a little more control this before, nothing would have occurred. Oh, what beautiful summer...
The case of Libor continues to produce its effects. Some of its ramifications are jurisdictional, through prosecution for price manipulation or cartel, some are normative, through institutional reflections about reforms deemed necessary of the Libor mechanism.
After UK, it's the turn for the European Commission to organize a large consultation about it.
In Senegal, the Autorité de régulation des télécommunications et des postes (ARTP ; English translation: Telecommunications and Posts Regulatory Authority) has, just like all regulators, inherent powers to impose sanctions. In general, the important thing is not only to exercise this sanctioning power but to exercise it in a way that reinforces the authority of the Regulator. In this perspective, the new Sonatel sanction decision is important.
As a sanctions always carry a heavier weight when people are made aware of it, the Director General of the Artp issued a press release, that has been flagged as particularly important, and held a press conference (in French) on a particularly serious sanction imposed following what the Regulator considers as the non-fulfilment of obligations stemming from formal notices (which, by the way, the telecom operator challenges on the merits).
On 21 November 2014 indeed, the Sonatel was given a formal notice from the Artp to respect consumer rights. As the code of telecommunications provides since its modification in 2014, operators shall "prendre les mesures appropriées de dimensionnement de leurs réseaux de nature à garantir à leurs clients un accès ininterrompu à leur service client commercial ou technique en respectant un taux d’efficacité minimal" (translation: "take appropriate measures to size their networks in a way that provides their consumers with an uninterrupted access to their customer service (sales service and technical support) which would respect a minimum efficiency rate") set by the Regulator itself- as to, namely, ensure that the right of consumers to be informed is satisfied (as regards billing mechanisms) and that their calls to consumer services remain free of charge. As the Regulator estimated that the Sonatel was not complying with such regulations, it conducted a formal investigation and notified a statement of objections to the operator, before sending on 28 January 2015 a second formal notice for the same reasons.
On 14 July 2016, the Regulator imposed a sanction on Sonatel since the it still estimated that the operator's behavior still was not leading to a compliant situation as regards the consumer right to be informed. The sanction, as stated in the Sonatel decision, is 13 billion 959 million FCfa (c. €20m), i.e., 15% of Sonatel's 2015 turnover. The sanction decision also provides that if the operator does not enforce it, an additional penalty of 10m FCfa (c. €15,000) per day will be charged.
The operator, however, challenges this sanction insofar as it estimates that its behavior is not to be blamed. To support its claim, Sonatel avails itself from the fact that upon reception of the first formal notice, it undertook a 'progressive compliance' with the requirements process as regards its network, then let the Regulator know about it, etc. It is henceforth to lodge an appeal.
The issue at stake, therefore, is to know whether the obligations on operators are obligations regarding the means used (that is to say, means obligations), or, conversely, if they are obligations to produce results (performance obligations). If they are means obligations, then the operator is right. However, considering the efficiency and effectivity principes that are closely linked with the teleological nature of Regulation, it is more likely that such obligations are performance obligations.
For instance, in France, the Commission Informatiques et Libertés (French Data Protection Authority- CNIL) considered on 1 March 2016!footnote-42 that the obligations on operators to have accurate and complete data are performance obligations and not mere means obligations.
Thus, there is probably more to follow with this Sonatel decision. The day the press release was issued, the operator stated it intended to lodge a hierarchical appeal before the Minister.
The next day, the Director General of the Artp stated in the press (in French) that under the Senegal law, the appeal could only be lodged before a jurisdiction, or before... the Regulatory Authority itself (request for reconsideration - in French : "recours gracieux").
This situation is thus a great reminder that new illustrations of the interplays between Regulation and Politics can always be found.
In August 2020, Marriott International, online hotel room booking platform, has be sued before an English court by a consulting firm through a "class action" technic. The firm ask to Marriott International compensates the clients whose personal data jas been hacked while Marriott International which was in charge of this data, did not implement all it could to protect these data. According to the plaintiff firm, making the online platform responsible in Ex Ante of the clients' data security and constraint it to compensate injured clients in case of failure is a more important incentive for the firm to do its best to protect this data than a simple fine.
Many similar actions are ongoing, especially during English Courts where the practice of "class action" is more developed. The question is therefore to know whether it is interesting to encourage the development of this kind of process in France. Concretly, a substantial subjective right (here the right to have its data protected) exists only if it is accompanied by a procedural right to size the judge in order to he or she activates it. The right to ask for a compensation in case of violation of these Compliance obligations but also is therefore not only a strong incentive for firms but also a condition of effectivity of these same obligations, knowing that the effectivity is the major care of Compliance Law.
