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Les thèses de la corporate governance se sont imposées au milieu des années 1990 comme une source d’inspiration majeure pour la doctrine et le législateur en matière de droit des sociétés. Elles se sont imposées dans le monde des affaires au travers de textes à valeur législative (loi SOX aux États-Unis, loi « nouvelles régulations économiques » et loi « sécurité financière » en France) et, plus encore, de chartes, guides et autres codes de bonnes pratiques. Il est aujourd’hui possible de dresser un premier bilan des modifications ainsi apportées. L’article l’envisage sous l’angle de la fonction structurante des normes juridiques. Il aborde dans un premier temps la question de leur efficacité et s’efforce de montrer que l’apport des règles de corporate governance n’a nullement produit les résultats attendus par ses partisans. Dans un second temps, l’article soulève la question de l’adéquation de ces règles par rapport aux équilibres traditionnels du droit français des affaires. Il insiste sur la vacuité de certaines des propositions de la corporate governance (par exemple la généralisation des administrateurs indépendants) et la difficulté de les articuler avec l’environnement socio-juridique qui prévaut dans notre pays (par exemple l’instauration de l’alerte éthique).

THE MISERY OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE RULES French business law has been deeply influenced by the theory of “Corporate Governance” since the middle of the Nineties. Among others, Marc Viénot and Daniel Bouton’s reports supported innovations, such as principles of transparency and of compliance, and institutions acting as independent administrators. Guidelines and codes of governance are now implemented by most listed companies. The Parliament passed several acts which oblige such companies to comply with corporate governance standards : Law on new economic regulation, financial security law, etc. Last but not least, the French subsidiaries of American publicly listed companies have to comply with the provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act providing for a “whistleblowing” procedure. All in all, corporate governance is the main inspiration of the French business law since the beginning of the century. Ten years after, does corporate governance work ? Has economic regulation improved ? Are companies managers under tighter control ? Did scandals and financial crisis disappear ? The answer is clearly negative. If we consider business life from a microeconomic point of view, in spite of all legal and voluntary provisions implemented by companies in accordance with corporate governance theory, such cases as Refco in the US or Société Générale in France are obvious examples of internal control failures. Corporate governance mechanisms do not provide managerial transparency nor financial security. From a macroeconomic point of view, they did not prevent the banks from taking foolish risks in giving estate credit to obviously insolvent borrowers. Beyond economic inefficiency, corporate governance rules weaken the business law because they are narrowly focused on the principal agent relationship and ignore the non financial scope of the firm. In this paper, we argue that some of the most important corporate governance mechanisms (such as independent administrator, managerial incentives, whistleblowing) do not fit with major principles and equilibria of French law. We suggest that we should get over with so poor a model as is provided by the principal agent theory, and instead consider the firm as a complex socio-economic cell.