L’Adoption des Accords de Poursuite Suspendue au Canada : le pouvoir politique bien peu silencieux d’un champion national

Les entreprises multinationales jouent un rôle de premier plan dans l’élaboration des politiques publiques. M’inspirant notamment des travaux du professeur Culpepper sur le pouvoir corporatif « silencieux » (2011, 2015), j’étudie les dynamiques de pouvoir ayant mené à l’inclusion des « accords de poursuite suspendue » (APS) au Code criminel canadien. D’origine américaine, les APS permettent aux entreprises de mettre un terme à des procédures judiciaires criminelles -sans plaidoyer de culpabilité- sur la base d’amendes et d’engagements de meilleure gouvernance. Alors même qu’ils suscitent la controverse quant à leur efficacité et leur équité aux États-Unis, ils se propagent au Royaume-Uni, au Brésil, en France, à Singapour et maintenant au Canada. Comment expliquer l’adoption d’APS canadiens malgré l’absence de preuve de leur efficacité et la controverse que cette politique publique suscite dans la littérature spécialisée ? Notre hypothèse principale est que le gouvernement a répondu à une demande de SNC-Lavalin (SNC), un champion national québécois et canadien en ingénierie, accusé de corruption à l’étranger. SNC a bien cadré sa campagne de lobbyisme, mais disposait surtout d’un avantage structurel vu son importance pour l’économie canadienne. Pour cette raison, SNC a obtenu la politique publique de son choix alors même que le modèle de Culpepper aurait prédit un contexte plus difficile. En effet, il n’y a pas eu de réel débat partisan malgré la saillance des scandales de corruption de SNC et malgré le cadre législatif (formel) nécessaire à l’adoption des APS canadiens. Comme autres explications, notre analyse de la saillance des enjeux montre une différence marquée entre la couverture médiatique des scandales de corruption et le moindre intérêt pour la politique publique très technique des APS pour y répondre. Par ailleurs, la variable du cadre législatif « formel », censée donner lieu à un débat partisan, s’applique moins bien au Canada où l’Assemblée législative est dominée par l’exécutif. L’adoption de ces nouveaux instruments en matière d’imputabilité criminelle des entreprises constitue donc un « cas d’orientation » pour les modèles de pouvoir corporatif. Leur étude permet de raffiner l’application du modèle de Culpepper et de mieux comprendre les mécanismes causaux du pouvoir des entreprises.Multinational companies play a leading role in shaping public policies. Inspired in particular by Professor Culpepper's work on Quiet Politics and Business Power (2011, 2015), I study the power dynamics that led to the inclusion of “Deferred prosecution agreements” (DPAs) in the Canadian Criminal Code. Developed in the U.S., DPAs allow businesses to put an end to criminal judicial proceedings - without guilty pleas – by paying fines and often by adopting various governance reforms. Although their efficiency and legitimacy are being questioned in the United States, they are spreading to the UK, Brazil, France, Singapore and now Canada. How do we explain the adoption of Canadian DPAs despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness and the controversy they raise in the specialized literature? Our main assumption is that the government responded to a request from SNC-Lavalin, a national engineering champion of Quebec and Canada, accused of foreign bribery, fraud and corruption. SNC properly framed its lobbying campaign, but had a structural advantage because of its importance to the Canadian economy. For this reason, SNC obtained the public policy of its choice even though Culpepper’s model would have predicted a more difficult context of adoption for DPAs. Indeed, there was no real partisan debate despite the salience of SNC's corruption scandals and the (formal) legislative framework necessary to the adoption of the Canadian DPAs. Furthermore, our analysis of the salience of the “issue” shows a marked difference between the wider media coverage of the corruption scandals as a political issue and the narrower interest in the highly technical public policy of the APS as a response to it. Also, the "formal" legislative framework variable, which could have triggered partisan debate, is less applicable in Canada where the legislature is dominated by the executive. The adoption of these new corporate criminal accountability instruments is therefore a "pathway case" for business power. Their study allows us to refine the application of Culpepper’s model and to better understand the causal mechanisms of corporate power

Quand les bactéries font la loi : regards éthiques, épistémiques, juridiques, politiques, sociales et techniques sur l’utilisation du microbiome humain à des fins judiciaires

L’utilisation du microbiome humain à des fins judiciaires comme objet d’étude implique divers enjeux allant d’une remise en question de notre conception traditionnelle de l’identité au respect de la vie privée, en passant par le type de consentement à recueillir lors du prélèvement d’un échantillon de microbiome. La particularité de cette étude nécessite le travail conjoint d’une équipe multidisciplinaire composée de spécialistes en éthique, criminalistique, droit, microbiologie, philosophie et science politique

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Albiglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Harmony Outcomes): a double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial

Background: Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists differ in chemical structure, duration of action, and in their effects on clinical outcomes. The cardiovascular effects of once-weekly albiglutide in type 2 diabetes are unknown. We aimed to determine the safety and efficacy of albiglutide in preventing cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke. Methods: We did a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 610 sites across 28 countries. We randomly assigned patients aged 40 years and older with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (at a 1:1 ratio) to groups that either received a subcutaneous injection of albiglutide (30–50 mg, based on glycaemic response and tolerability) or of a matched volume of placebo once a week, in addition to their standard care. Investigators used an interactive voice or web response system to obtain treatment assignment, and patients and all study investigators were masked to their treatment allocation. We hypothesised that albiglutide would be non-inferior to placebo for the primary outcome of the first occurrence of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke, which was assessed in the intention-to-treat population. If non-inferiority was confirmed by an upper limit of the 95% CI for a hazard ratio of less than 1·30, closed testing for superiority was prespecified. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02465515. Findings: Patients were screened between July 1, 2015, and Nov 24, 2016. 10 793 patients were screened and 9463 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to groups: 4731 patients were assigned to receive albiglutide and 4732 patients to receive placebo. On Nov 8, 2017, it was determined that 611 primary endpoints and a median follow-up of at least 1·5 years had accrued, and participants returned for a final visit and discontinuation from study treatment; the last patient visit was on March 12, 2018. These 9463 patients, the intention-to-treat population, were evaluated for a median duration of 1·6 years and were assessed for the primary outcome. The primary composite outcome occurred in 338 (7%) of 4731 patients at an incidence rate of 4·6 events per 100 person-years in the albiglutide group and in 428 (9%) of 4732 patients at an incidence rate of 5·9 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·78, 95% CI 0·68–0·90), which indicated that albiglutide was superior to placebo (p<0·0001 for non-inferiority; p=0·0006 for superiority). The incidence of acute pancreatitis (ten patients in the albiglutide group and seven patients in the placebo group), pancreatic cancer (six patients in the albiglutide group and five patients in the placebo group), medullary thyroid carcinoma (zero patients in both groups), and other serious adverse events did not differ between the two groups. There were three (<1%) deaths in the placebo group that were assessed by investigators, who were masked to study drug assignment, to be treatment-related and two (<1%) deaths in the albiglutide group. Interpretation: In patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, albiglutide was superior to placebo with respect to major adverse cardiovascular events. Evidence-based glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists should therefore be considered as part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes. Funding: GlaxoSmithKline

Search for new phenomena in high-mass diphoton final states using 37 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions collected at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Searches for new phenomena in high-mass diphoton final states with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC are presented. The analysis is based on pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.7 fb−1 at a centre-of-mass energy √s = 13 TeV recorded in 2015 and 2016. Searches are performed for resonances with spin 0, as predicted by theories with an extended Higgs sector, and for resonances with spin 2, using a warped extra-dimension model as a benchmark model, as well as for non-resonant signals, assuming a large extra-dimension scenario. No significant deviation from the Standard Model is observed. Upper limits are placed on the production cross section times branching ratio to two photons as a function of the resonance mass. In addition, lower limits are set on the ultraviolet cutoff scale in the large extra-dimensions model