Risk-Based Regulation as a Reflexive Regulatory Strategy

This article is an attempt to outline the concept of risk-based regulation and to identify issues that require further study and preliminary examination on how this kind of regulatory strategy can be translated into business practice. This last issue could tentatively be reduced to reflecting on whether regulators and undertakings operating in the continental regulatory model (based primarily on a command-and-control model) are ready-to-implement concepts derived from and used in English-speaking countries, mainly Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The article identifies the organisational, political, infrastructural and volitional conditions that need to be met in order to allow the implementation of the risk-based-regulation model, one of three reflexive strategies referred to in the literature. Reflexive regulatory systems have proven to be successful in countries where regulators enjoy considerable autonomy and independence and where staff is composed of professionals who do not adhere to the "official routine." On the other hand, the reflexive character of the regulatory strategy is based on risk management, and not on compliance, which is characteristic of the continental model.