Prerequisites for the Formation of the Anti-Corruption Security Theory in the Russian Federation

Security is one of the basic needs of the individual, society and the state, as well as an integral condition for their development. Corruption is among the threats to the national security of the Russian Federation, as it follows from the National Security Strategy approved by Presidential Decree No. 683 of 31.12.2015. The significant efforts made by the state since the mid‑2000s to form and improve social, legal and organizational mechanisms for combating corruption consistently lead to positive results. At the same time, we have to state that corruption continues to cause irreparable harm to public relations, creates an atmosphere of social tension in society. It is no coincidence that the new National Security Strategy, approved by Presidential Decree No. 400 of 02.07.2021, emphasizes the need of society to strengthen the fight against corruption. The high rates of development of anti-corruption legislation, as well as the institutionalization of anti-corruption structures, have led to the formation of natural intra-system contradictions that hinder the further sustainable development of anti-corruption activities. The emerging trends of stagnation of the anti-corruption system actualize the search for qualitatively new fundamental scientific developments that allow us to reach a new level of intersectoral scientific understanding and development of anti-corruption mechanisms. The current stage of the development of scientific knowledge about the phenomena of corruption and security, as well as the relevant anti-corruption and security systems, allows us to identify sufficient prerequisites for the beginning of the development of the theory of anti-corruption security, which contains methodological approaches to ensuring personal, state and global anti-corruption security

Minority Shareholders’ Legal Protection in a Limited Liability Company System

The purpose of this study is to determine the legal protection model for the majority and minority shareholders in public limited companies. This research method is normative research. To investigate the ineffectiveness of laws and regulations, in particular, Law No. 40 of 2007 on limited liability companies in providing shareholder protection, researchers have studied the laws and regulations and considered the views of experts on legal concepts related to legal protection for shareholders, particularly, minority shareholders. The results showed that the law did not provide maximum legal protection for minority shareholders, creating an imbalance between the rights of the minority and majority shareholders. For this reason, 1) reform or progressive changes in laws and regulations are needed, for instance, in PT Law No. 40 of 2007. These changes should be fundamental to philosophical aspects (values and perspectives) in providing shareholder protection; 2) the review of shareholders’ protection methods should be based on the aspects of fairness

Russia in Global Digital Tax Reform: Together or Apart?

The goal of this research is to develop policy proposals for a reform of Russian corporate income tax legislation. The paper reviews and analyses international and Russian tax policy context and ongoing reforms that aim to address the challenges of the digital economy. It is shown that different states have been implementing unilateral measures in their respective tax legislation due to the absence of global consensus about coordinated reform. This leads to increasing complexity and uncertainty for digital businesses and tax administrations. Considering that the digital tax reform agenda is highly relevant for Russia for fiscal reasons, several ideas for developing Russian tax rules in this context are proposed, including amendments to the concept of corporate residence, introducing a digital services tax as an interim measure, amending the mechanism of withholding tax on royalties and clarifying the tax characterisation of supplies in digital form. This article was prepared as part of research by state assignment at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

Tax Compliance and its Enforcement Instruments: Russian Approach

The absence of a tax compliance theory in the Russian doctrine predetermined the objectives of the study – the search for promising tools to achieve the willingness of taxpayers to comply with the tax legislation voluntarily, as well as determining the place of coercive measures against taxpayers in order to ensure tax compliance in the Russian Federation. The work is based on the complex application of a number of general and special research methods (structural and functional analysis, comparative legal, formal-logical, system-structural methods). The information base of the research is represented by domestic legal acts and judicial practice, official data of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, scientific works of both Russian and foreign authors. The study’s main outcome is to validate the conclusion that tax administration (in order to ensure tax compliance) must combine not only the tools of coercive influence (tax audits, horizontal tax monitoring, anti-tax avoidance measures aimed at tackling aggressive tax planning) but also stimulating tools: interaction between tax payers and tax authorities in the form of information exchange, sending recommendations and proposals to the taxpayer on independent clarification of the tax base and tax obligations

Legal Issues of Smart Contracts in Contract Law

The research is carried out on some legal issues of smart contracts and their place in Russian and other countries’ contract law. By means of contract law such issues are analysed: 1) conclusion and performance of smart contracts’ obligations; 2) practical issues arising due to smart contracts’ use; 3) contract law provisions that might be applied to smart contracts; 4) issues that are not covered by the legislation but need to be addressed. A smart contract is considered to be a contract with the specific type of performance of obligations (automated performance). Smart contract is a contract concluded with an exchange of data (type of a written form). Smart contracts are performed with the help of automated performance and previously expressed consent of parties. It is proved that smart contracts could be modified and terminated giving a mechanism for that as well as provides for measures of defence and responsibility that could be applied for obligations out of smart contracts. As the result, provisions of smart contracts that reflect smart contracts’ place and peculiarities in contract law are formulated

Problems of Legal Regulation of the Implementation of Fixed Assets of Legal Entities, Serving Sentences as an Incentive for Law-abiding Behavior of Those Sentenced to Imprisonment, Respect for Individual Rights

The aim of the work is to study criminal-executive relations in the field of application of the basic means of correction to convicts serving a sentence of imprisonment. The analysis of the legal basis for the implementation of fixed assets for the correction of convicts established by the criminal executive legislation of Russia is carried out. There is a deficiency in the legal regulation of certain remedies, including social impact and educational work with prisoners. This circumstance is a significant obstacle to their implementation in practice, which negatively affects the formation of law-abiding behavior of persons serving a prison sentence, as well as the observance of rights. A number of recommendations are made, aimed at improving the criminal-executive policy in this area, including on the basis of the analysis of the legal support of remedies for convicted countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States convicted under the law

Anti-Corruption Information Technologies

Most countries are making significant efforts to combat corruption. International organizations have developed effective recommendations that have allowed many states to achieve success in the implementation of anti-corruption policies. Using these recommendations Russian Government has developed and implemented effective methods for combating this social phenomenon. Currently, the results obtained from anti-corruption activities are declining. Having considered the tendencies in the development of anti-corruption mechanisms in Russia and worldwide, the authors concluded that there is a delayed decrease in efficiency from the use of anti-corruption methods. In particular, the method of transparency in the long-term period leads to the complication of relations between the corruption interaction subjects, instead of corruption neutralization. To overcome the effect of the delayed decrease in efficiency, the authors put forward a hypothesis about the need to introduce big data processing technologies and artificial intelligence into the anti-corruption system. The work analyzes the foreign experience of using these tools. Based on the results of the analysis, the authors identified problems encountered by foreign specialists and gave recommendations on the organization of anti-corruption activity in Russia. The article proposes the author’s structure of an artificial intelligence system that carries out a comprehensive anti-c

Potential for the Development of Productive Activities of the Russian Penal System in the Context of Achieving National Goals Under the Paris Climate Agreement

One of the key tasks of the penal and correctional system is not only to socially isolate convicts and organize acceptable living conditions for them, but also to ensure their adequate resocialization after serving their sentence. The solution of this problem requires new approaches to the conduct of production activities by the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. Among others, priority should be given to the areas of traditional economic specialization of the penitentiary system, which include, for example, logging and woodworking. The national contribution of the Russian Federation to the implementation of the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement implies the fullest possible use of the carbon-absorbing capacity of Russian forests. This task is solved, among other things, by a significant increase in the volume of artificial reforestation, which requires the development of a network of tree nurseries throughout the country. The article analyzes in detail the experience of a joint pilot project on forest nursery creation based on one of the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service with the participation of business association in the field of forest industry in Krasnoyarsk Krai. It is shown that the project is not only effective, but also has high indicators of economic efficiency, characterized by low payback period under the condition of ensuring decent working conditions for inmates. It emphasizes the importance of scientific and methodological support of the work performed by universities and research institutes, including within the program of creating world-class scientific and educational centers of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation

Uniform Application of Laws in the Context of Post-Classical Law

The article reveals the impotence of classical legal theories to explain the inconsistency of the practice of applying laws. The legal dogma is subjected to the phenomenological analysis. Moreover, its inability to overcome the conventions of pure jurism is shown. From the position of postclassical jurisprudence, the theory of natural law is criticized. The necessity of refusing to contrast natural and positive law is substantiated. The communicative concept of law, its cognitive value and role in ensuring a uniform application of laws are considered. The criticism of integrative legal theories is evaluated from the perspective of the functionality of law in the form of resolving social conflicts. The approach that reduces legal theory to a method of resolving conflicts is called into question. The negative influence of the dichotomy of positive and natural law is argued, both on the uniform application of laws and on the rule of law in general. From the point of view of the functionality of law, the correlation of its material and procedural branches is revealed. As a result, a hypothesis is formulated that the main direction of the development of legal science is the creation of integrative law that can combine various legal concepts, which will allow us to build a rigid legal dogma based on unified methodological foundations and remove contradictions between legal theories in resolving social conflicts

Punitive Damages Awards in International Arbitration: Franchising Case

This article is written to evaluate the practical significance of punitive damages in the field of arbitration concerning international commercial disputes and franchise disputes. It finds that punitive damages awards are frequent in domestic arbitrations in the United States but not internationally common. This article discusses the severity of the punitive damages awards to explain why such decisions are not frequent in international trade disputes; it still has a significant influence that concerns the contracting parties, making them exclude punitive damages in their agreements. This article also explains the reasons for limiting the use of these punitive damages. The first one is the limitation of punitive damages applied to arbitration. Indeed, punitive damages are only recognised under a handful of domestic arbitration laws in a number of countries, especially the ones associated with contract claims. Secondly, the enforceability of such awards is internationally limited due to public policy. Therefore, this difficulty caused the arbitral tribunal to refuse to award such damages. Finally, the statistics on punitive damages award in international commercial arbitration are scarce, so the article refers to provide and analyse the cases that are not international-thereby discussing and evaluating the suitability of punitive damages in the context of international commercial arbitration