Alumni | Témoignage de M. Bart M. SCHWARTZ

Last week I had the privilege of participating in the European Symposium on Ethics and Governance at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. It was quite a gathering under the tutelage and supervision of Dean Roxana Family of Cergy-Pontoise School of Law in Paris, France. She did a fantastic job bringing together experts, government officials, business people and students from many countries to hear from similarly diverse groups of panel members.

I discussed the difference between the "soft law" compliance requirements found in France, the UK and many other countries compared to the "hard law" in the United States. The soft law, known as "comply or explain', means that listed companies must defend any deviation from the standard. But, if the explanation is accepted then the deviation is accepted. I'm over simplifying it a bit, but that is the gravamen of the program. I compared that to our system, which has no government models and relies to a great extent on law enforcement. I dubbed it "comply or confess."

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Bart M. Schwartz
Chairman and CEO