Comply or Explain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comply_or_explain
Rather than setting out binding laws, government regulators (in the UK, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), in Germany, under the Aktiengesetz) set out a code, which listed companies may either comply with, or if they do not comply, explain publicly why they do not. The purpose of "comply or explain" is to "let the market decide" whether a set of standards is appropriate for individual companies. Since a company may deviate from the standard, this approach rejects the view that "one size fits all", but because of the requirement of disclosure of explanations to market investors, anticipates that if investors do not accept a company's explanations, then they will sell their shares, hence creating a "market sanction", rather than a legal one.