Indeed, the term "guidelines" is common in how each and designates certain documents prepared by the regulatory authorities. These give themselves this appellation to documents made ex ante to give operators the "outline" of the future action of the regulator. Thus, the "guidelines" would produce legal certainty while maintaining flexibility, since in the future the authority will continue to set its position on a case by case basis.
Now comes the case: it was necessary that the "hard right" come bless the "soft law".
In this case, was challenged before the administrative judge an "instruction" from this Agency for French Teaching Abroad for the "consideration of the financial situation of the parents" seeking a scholarship to the child. A local agency for awarding grants had rejected a request no meeting the criteria developed in the statement. Parents have acted appeal for abuse of power. They both lost before the Cour administrative d'appel de Paris (Administrative Court of Pari) that before the Conseil d'État.
However, the Council recognizes that the Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger has no regulatory power. But the judgement takes in considération that:"l'instruction en cause a énoncé, à l'intention des commissions locales, des lignes directrices, sans fixer de normes à caractère général qui se serait imposée de matière impérative à ces commissions"!footnote-8 .
Triumph of soft law!
Thus, organizations, "agencies", may take "general guidelines" here which do not contain any threshold and generating no rights, on which the commission take real decisions. These are based on the first document, but because of the "flexibility" of it, the one whose solution is affected by the particular decision does'not have the right to appeal.
All the beauty and effectiveness of "soft law". The judge, after having boasted, now offers it royal way.
Regulation presupposes that we move from a political conception of Act (that is to say a collective Decision expressed by the State) or a civilist one (that is, a will expressed by one or several individuals in one Contract) to an economic vision of trading organizations whose action is the expression of the market. If one relies on the adjustment of supply and demand, that is to say, the meeting of desires and interests, there will be "self-regulation", which is the "Law of the Market ", referring to competition law. The act of the operators is only a reflection of this law, in action.
La Régulation est alors plus complexe car elle vise autre chose que cette rationalité mécanique, soit en raison d’une défaillance du marché (par exemple en cas de monopole naturel) soit parce qu’on veut obtenir plus que ce que le marché peut donner (par ex. l’accès de tous à des biens communs, comme la santé, même pour des demandeurs insolvables). Dans ce cas, sont élaborées des règlementations, interventions ex ante désignées en anglais par le terme regulation. La règlementation est adéquate si elle incite des agents économiques à adopter des comportements qui concrétisent le but recherché par l’auteur de la règlementation.
Regulation is then more complex because it aims at something other than this mechanical rationality, either because of a market failure (for example in the case of a natural monopoly) or because it wants to obtain more than the market can give ( Eg access to common goods by all, such as health, even for insolvent claimants). In this case, regulations are drawn up, ex ante intervention. The regulation is adequate if it encourages economic agents to adopt behaviors that concretize the aim sought by the author of the regulatory mechanisms.
This strategic use of law then requires the necessary detour through the economic analysis of law, that is to say the analysis of law in its economic effects.
This discipline created in the United States by Ronald Coase (Nobel Prize for Economics in 1991) can be merely descriptive and reveal what economic effects the law produced. This conception, which is that of Richard Posner, makes the economic analysis of law an instrument of expertise for the political decision-maker, who can take this into account if it is necessary to modify the rules. A more radical conception of the so-called "normative economic analysis of law" is to argue that the conclusions of the analysis would oblige the decision-maker to follow it.
The issue is decisive because in the first case the law and the jurists - in particular the Legislator and the judge - still have an autonomous existence, in the second case they no longer exist, they are no more than the binding and explicit form of the "Law of the market" whose nature is a-legal.
Even in its descriptive form, economic analysis of the law is generally rejected in France in that it disregards the role of the law in that it carries moral values. It is in reality to ignore its merely descriptive, instructive and useful function, and the fact that it opens instead the amplitude of the rational choice offered to political decision-makers. Moreover, regulation is not only a technical discipline, it is also a political and philosophical issue. Descriptive economic analysis is more appropriate to it than normative economic analysis of the law, which claims to vassalize or even destroy other disciplines, which are substantially unknown.
In The Journal of Regulation the summaries’ translation are done by the Editors and not by the authors
ENGLISH
The European Commission issued a reasoned opinion on November 24th, 2011, to France and the Czech Republic demanding that those countries modify their legislation in order to comply with European regulation on renewable energies. If the modifications are not implemented in the upcoming two months, the Commission will open a case before the European Court of Justice.
FRENCH
La Commission européennea émis unavis motivéle 24 Novembre2011,concernantla Franceet la République tchèque,exigeant queces paysmodifientleur législationafin de se conformerà la réglementationeuropéennesur les énergies renouvelables.Si les modificationsne sont pasmises en œuvre dansles deuxprochainsmois, la Commissionouvrira uneprocédure devant la Courde justice de l’Union européenne
ITALIAN
Il 24 novembre 2011, la Commissione europea ha emesso una raccomandazione con cui richiede alla Francia ed alla Repubblica Ceca di modificare le proprie legislazioni in modo tale da conformarle alla regolamentazione europea in materia di energia rinnovabile. Se le modifiche non saranno introdotte entro i prossimi due mesi, la Commissione adirà la Corte di Giustizia Europea.
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.
On 22nd of September 2017, Transport of London (TFL), London Transport Regulator, refused to renew the licence, granted on 31st of May 2012 for 5 years, authorizing Uber to transport people because of criminal offenses committed by Uber's drivers. On 26th of June 2018, The Westminster Court prolonged Uber's licence for 15 months under the condition that the platform prevent the reproachable behaviors of its drivers. After these 15 months, the TFL refused once again to prolonge Uber's licence because of the persistence of aggressions against passengers. Uber, once again, contest this decision before the Westminster Court.
In a decision of 28th of September 2020, the Court observes that during the 15 months, the platform implemented many measures to prevent aggressions, that the level of maturity of these measures has improved over time and that the number of offenses was reduced over the period (passing from 55 in 2018 to 4 in 2020). The Court estimated the the implementation of this actions is sufficient to grant a new licence to Uber.
We can learn three lessons from this decision:
The Compliance obligation is not a result obligation but a mean obligation, which means that it is not reasonable to expect from a crucial operator (Uber, for instance) that it prevent every cases of agression but that it is salient to judge it on the effort it deploys to try to be closer to this ideal situation. Moreover, the crucial operator must be proactive, that is going away from the figure of passive subject of Law who apply measures enacted by the regulator in terms of fighting against aggressions to be an actor of the research of the best way to fight abusive behaviors, internalizing this "monumental goal.
The judge appreciates the violation committed by those whose the firm is responsible "in context", that is evaluates the concrete situation in a reasonable way.
It is the judge who decides in last resort and like the crucial operator, it must be reasonable.
In The Journal of Regulation the summaries’ translation are done by the Editors and not by the authors
ENGLISH
On 16 November 2011, Moody’s downgraded twelve public-sector German banks, after regulatory changes in Germany and the EU.
FRENCH
Le 16 novembre 2011, Moody"s a dégradé douze banques publiques allemandes, après des changements dans la régulation financière en Allemagne et dans l’Union Européenne.
SPANISH
El 16 de noviembre del 2011, Moody’s degradó doce bancos del sector público alemán, después de cambios regulatorios en Alemania y la UE.
ITALIAN
Il 16 novembre 2011, Moody’s ha declassato dodici banche tedesche del settore pubblico, dopo dei cambiamenti nella regolazione finanziaria in Germania e nell’Unione europea.
Philippe Poiget became a member of the Fédération Française des Sociétés d'Assurances (FFSA) in 1985 and then became their Director of Legal, Tax, and Competition Affairs in 2002. (...)
Etienne Wasmer is a Professor at Sciences Po Paris, where he directs doctoral studies in economics and co-directs a Laboratoire d’Excellence (Labex) on the Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policy. (...)
