# ACF — Teaching Cases

**Version 1.0 — May 2026**
*Pedagogical companion to the Agentic Commerce Framework (ACF®) and the book "Agentic Sovereignty" — Vincent Dorange*

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## Who these cases are for

15 high-rigor teaching cases organized as 5 tracks × 3 cases. Designed for university programs, Grande École (French top-tier business school) programs, executive education, and specialized master's degrees — without presupposing any institutional ranking: **any school, university, or training organization can use them** provided their participants' level matches.

| Code | Track | Typical programs |
|------|-------|------------------|
| **F1** | Business / management school | Master's programs, Grande École, specialized management Master's |
| **F2** | Engineering / computer science school | Engineering cycle, specialized Master's Year 2 (cloud, SRE, cybersecurity, distributed systems) |
| **F3** | MBA | MBA Year 1 / Year 2, equivalent programs |
| **F4** | Executive programs / Senior leadership cycles | All formats: executive, advanced management, executive Master's, presidential cycles, high-level continuing education |
| **F5** | AI Master's / Research | Master's Year 2 / PhD in AI Safety, Applied ML, Education Tech, AI + Biotech |

The cases are built around realistic multi-stakeholder trade-offs — they assume participants comfortable with the *case study* method (HBR, INSEAD, McKinsey, BCG, etc.), capable of sustaining an argument when several defensible answers coexist. **No single right answer; no academic filler**: what matters is the quality of the trade-offs made.

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## Prerequisites

The cases are designed as an **extension** of the book *Agentic Sovereignty* (Vincent Dorange) — prior reading is **strongly recommended** to grasp the concepts (decisional sovereignty, autonomy levels, the DDAO (Delegated Decision Agent Officer) role, safeguards, criticality matrix, kill switch).

**If the audience has not read the book**, the instructor may introduce a **30 to 45-minute framing session** covering:
1. Core ACF vocabulary (agent, autonomy, mandate, safeguards, kill switch, registry, DDAO)
2. The 4-level autonomy grid per decision (suggestive / co-decision / supervised autonomous / autonomous)
3. The role of the **DDAO** (Delegated Decision Agent Officer) and other governance roles
4. The criticality matrix (Complexity × Impact)
5. The 6-step decision cycle (Briefing → Event → Analysis → Decision & Trade-off → Action → Debrief)

The materials for this session are available in cards **ACF-00 through ACF-16** (A4 HD print-ready, downloadable from acfstandard.com — instructor zone).

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## Nomenclature

`F{track}-C{case}` — examples: `F1-C1`, `F3-C2`, `F5-C3`.

Each case follows a unified structure:

1. **Case identity** (duration, level, format, final deliverable)
2. **Situation briefing** (context, characters, figures)
3. **Learner's mission**
4. **Documents and data provided** *(optional, common backbone provided in appendix)*
5. **ACF tools to mobilize** (card mapping)
6. **Expected deliverables** (3 to 5 concrete outputs)
7. **Evaluation grid** (out of 100 points — see unified grid below)
8. **Lines of analysis** (pedagogical note for the instructor — not for the student)
9. **Variants & extensions** (to replay the case with different tension)

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## Unified evaluation grid (100 points)

> This grid replaces the two divergent versions of cards ACF-14 pages 2 and 3. **To be adopted across all cases and assessments.**

| Criterion | Points | What is evaluated |
|-----------|-------:|-------------------|
| **Understanding of context** | 15 | Correct identification of stakeholders, stakes, constraints, information asymmetries |
| **Decisional mapping** | 15 | Rigorous use of ACF-01 + ACF-02: decisions identified, criticality justified |
| **Relevance of the autonomy level** | 20 | Justification of the chosen level (suggestive / co-decision / supervised autonomous / autonomous) with proportionate safeguards |
| **Quality of safeguards & mitigations** | 15 | ACF-06 specification (Kill Switch), ACF-11 (risks), ACF-08 traceability |
| **Anticipation of drifts** | 15 | Identification of non-trivial failure modes (Goodhart, scheming, reward hacking, crowd-out bias, etc.) |
| **Presentation & debrief** | 10 | Clarity, prioritization, ability to defend trade-offs |
| **Bonus (argued boldness)** | 10 | One well-grounded counterintuitive recommendation is worth more than 10 conformist ones |
| **TOTAL** | **100** | |

**Thresholds**: ≥ 85 = Excellent / 70-84 = Solid / 55-69 = Acceptable / < 55 = Needs rework.

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## Quick case → ACF card mapping

> **ACF-15 (Governance Simulation)** can be mobilized on **all cases** as a facilitation format (role play: DDAO + AI Governance Lead + Risk Officer + Compliance Officer + Agent Owner + Incident Manager). Marked ⊕ below when it is particularly well-suited.

| Case | ACF-00 | ACF-01 | ACF-02 | ACF-03 | ACF-04 | ACF-05 | ACF-06 | ACF-07 | ACF-08 | ACF-09 | ACF-10 | ACF-11 | ACF-12 | ACF-13 | ACF-15 |
|------|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|:------:|
| F1-C1 Pricing | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | | ● | | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F1-C2 Marketing | ● | ● | ● | | ● | | ● | | ● | | | ● | ● | ● | |
| F1-C3 Supply chain | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F2-C1 Multi-agent monitoring | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F2-C2 SOC security | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F2-C3 CI/CD rollback | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | |
| F3-C1 Governance & committee | ● | ● | ● | ● | | | | | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F3-C2 AI Act recruitment | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F3-C3 Make/Buy/Partner | ● | ● | ● | | | | | ● | | ● | ● | ● | | ● | |
| F4-C1 Executive liability | | ● | ● | ● | | | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F4-C2 Group strategic cycle | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | | | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F4-C3 M&A agentic scale-up | | | ● | ● | ● | | | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ● | |
| F5-C1 Reward hacking | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F5-C2 Evals & red teaming | | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |
| F5-C3 Multi-agent pharma architecture | | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ⊕ |

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## Recommended pedagogical posture

1. **No single right answer.** Multiple autonomy levels may be defended for the same case — what matters is the quality of the argument and the identification of trade-offs.
2. **Think in trade-offs, not checklists.** A participant who ticks the cards without critical tension deserves ≤ 60/100.
3. **Reward clear-sightedness.** A participant who states "I would refuse to deploy this agent under these conditions, here is why" deserves more than one who proposes a conformist textbook deployment.
4. **Confront 2025-2026 legal realities.** AI Act, NIS2, DORA, GDPR, Sapin 2 law, duty of vigilance. A non-compliant case is a major fault for MBA/EMBA.
5. **Silence is not neutral.** An omission (no Kill Switch, no Registry, no review) is a decision, not an absence — to be debated as such.
6. **ACF-15 (Governance Simulation) as a facilitation format.** For sessions where the instructor wants to **embody the tensions**, distribute the ACF-15 roles to participants (DDAO, AI Governance Lead, Risk Officer, Compliance Officer, Agent Owner, Incident Manager) and run through the **6-step cycle** (Briefing → Event → Analysis → Decision & Trade-off → Action → Debrief). This allows any of the 15 cases to be used in role-play mode rather than as written analysis.

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## Factual disclaimer (read before any classroom use)

**What is fictitious (by pedagogical design)**:
- The **companies** referenced in the briefs (Maison Lavande, Funneliq, Meridian Banque, Atalante, Stelvio, Lumière, Héritage & Partners, Eureka, Hélioproo, Sophia Agents, Fluvia, Apollo Learn, Helix, etc.) are **all invented**. Any resemblance to a real organization is coincidental.
- The **characters** (CEO, CHRO, CISO, etc.) and their résumés are **fictitious**.
- The **figures** (revenue, ARR, headcount, margins, valuations) are **fabricated for internal consistency** to support the scenario.
- The **"provided documents"** mentioned in each case (Mazars memos, Bredin Prat opinions, post-mortems, Lazard reports, etc.) are **pedagogical support fictions**. The instructor may draft them as desired or replace them with anonymized excerpts from real cases.
- Any mention of `[Fictitious scenario]` explicitly designates a hypothetical element introduced for the needs of the case.

**What is verifiable and must be preserved as-is**:
- The **legal references** (AI Act, DORA, NIS2, CSRD, CS3D, GDPR, penal code, commercial code, labor code) are cited with precise articles.
- The **case law** (Re Caremark, Marchand v. Barnhill, Stone v. Ritter, Bostock v. Clayton County, Thaler v. Vidal, Lafarge Syria cassation 2024, Schufa CJEU C-634/21) is accurate.
- The **historical incidents** (AWS us-east-1 December 2021, Cloudflare June 2022, Knight Capital 2012, RealPage DOJ, Snowflake breach 2024) are real and documented.
- The **AI Safety academic papers** (Anthropic Sleeper Agents Hubinger 2024, Constitutional AI Bai 2022, Alignment Faking Greenblatt 2024, RSP v2, Skalse NeurIPS 2022, Casper RLHF 2023, Wei Jailbroken NeurIPS 2023, Soice Science 2023, Sandbrink 2023, Manheim 2018, METR & Apollo Research evals) are real and accessible.

**If you find a questionable reference**: report it to the author (Vincent Dorange) — the next version will incorporate the correction.

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## Status & versioning

- **V1.0**: 15 cases (May 2026)
- Cases labeled **stable**: may be used in class
- Forthcoming: Google Sheets grading grid (V1), then web app (V2) on acfstandard.com — gated instructor zone

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*"One only governs properly what one makes visible."* — ACF
