THE CORDOGRAPH

The legal risks involved in failing to comply with these numerous applicable texts are therefore numerous, and yet many very small businesses fail to manage them. And with good reason, since while most of these companies are assisted in their management by a chartered accountant, very few have an in-house legal department or a lawyer responsible for monitoring their legal compliance. Although chartered accountants can provide real support in managing certain risks, their involvement is limited to risks related to their own missions, and a large proportion of the company’s legal risks remain outside their scope of control or vision.

To make matters worse, the technical nature of the texts and their constant evolution make it extremely difficult and time-consuming for companies to adapt to their legal obligations. How can I identify my legal obligations? How do you know whether the measures taken are in line with expectations, and whether they are sufficient to protect the company from sanctions? How do I know if my obligations have changed because a law has (yet again!) amended them?

It’s a time-consuming exercise, even though it’s not a direct source of wealth for the company. On the contrary, it can even potentially generate additional financial costs, as these adaptations and compliance measures are generally a source of cost for the company. Managers, overwhelmed by daily life and administrative, social, tax and financial constraints often neglect, in part, the implementation of certain legal devices: RGPD and protection of personal data within the company, updates to internal regulations and signage, annual updating of the Document Unique d’Evaluation des Risques Professionnels, ongoing employee training, management of overtime and break times, reproduction of general meetings in the register, control of regulated agreements, document retention to anticipate potential litigation… are all obligations often delayed or neglected.

Litigation at industrial tribunals is certainly the most common type of dispute within companies, and many business leaders have had bitter experience of industrial tribunal sanctions, which are often considered highly unfair. And yet, many convictions could be avoided or reduced without too much difficulty and at low cost through early monitoring and risk management.

It’s also impressive to see, in practice, the extent to which the rules for signing strategic corporate contracts are themselves neglected: no initials on all pages, sometimes even unsigned contracts, no date on the contract, no appendices.

However, failure to comply with these legal obligations can ultimately lead to serious financial consequences: loss of a strategic asset, breach of contract, damages, tax fines, or even liquidation of the company in the most serious cases.

Artificial intelligence now makes it possible to recreate a company’s litigation history and analyze its weak points, based on an analysis of court rulings handed down in disputes to which it has been a party. For example, the LegalMetrics tool, launched in 2018 by Lexbase, offers legal professionals “a mapping of legal disputes involving French companies, based on their name or SIREN number. It indicates the main themes of the company’s litigation (dismissal for misconduct, breach of contract, non-payment…), its position (defense or claim), as well as the arguments and grounds invoked.” (Cf. this article)

Managing legal risk is therefore becoming increasingly strategic for companies.

At the same time, this lack of legal risk management is often a source of anguish for managers, who are unaware of whether their structure presents any major unidentified legal risks, but above all have no simple solution for diagnosing these risks.

Referring a case to a lawyer is not a natural step. It’s already a rare reflex to seek the assistance of a lawyer outside the context of a dispute. This approach immediately puts off business owners, who intuitively consider it costly, time-consuming and complicated.

CINETIC has identified this as one of its priorities. This project was born out of our desire to offer effective legal support to company directors, whatever the size of their organization.

The objective? There are multiple :

• keep company managers informed of the main legal risks affecting their business and their potential consequences
• inform him of the measures to be taken to eliminate or limit the risks identified
• design a process with the lowest possible impact on the company, in terms of time and cost
• create the conditions for the firm to provide enlightened and effective legal support through rapid, targeted knowledge of the company’s strategic risks.

This lengthy process has led to the creation of an automated risk identification process, enabling CINETIC to provide companies with a report identifying their major legal risks in just a few days.

Our Cordographe® is an online legal platform that provides you with the list of documents required for diagnosis, and the option of downloading these documents online via a secure platform. A APPOINTMENT enables us to review these documents with you, and then send you the Cordography report presenting the risks detected, their possible consequences and the measures to be implemented to limit or eradicate them.

We’ll be happy to help.