Tyagai, E.D. On the issue of organizational and legal forms of the offshore companies: the civil law approach

Abstract: The article includes analysis of the key organizational legal forms of legal entities, which are t ypically used for the commercial activities in the offshore zones and jurisdictions, allowing to use beneficial tax, financial, information, and legal conditions for entrepreneurs. The author provides a critical evaluation of the utilitarian approaches to the studies of commercial structures in the offshore schemes of business. Attention is paid to the lack of the necessary terminological unity and system in this sphere. The author points out the civil law nature of the organizational legal form of a legal entity. From this standpoint, the author studies various classifications of the offshore organizations, the key legal models for the collective entrepreneurial activities in the common law states and the continental European states. The author also singles out the differences between the types of organizational legal forms of legal entities and the various offshore types within the same form. The author uses the civil law approach to analyze the correlation of the classic organizational legal forms of legal entities and the similar legal constructions, which are used in the offshore activities, then she compares them with the new entrepreneurial models, which function within the framework of basic mechanisms of private law.

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