Review: This article presents the analysis of the current Russian civil legislation that regulates warranties of contractual obligations, which represent a fairly new contractual instrument for Russian economic turnover and means of securing performance of obligations (mainly by co-signing and independent warranty), being the traditional legal construct for Russian legal order. To carry out detailed study and comparison of the aforementioned legal constructs, the author also examines the relevant case law and doctrinal approaches regarding the subject of obligations, performance of obligations, means of securing performance of obligations, and civil legal responsibility. The methodology is based on the dogmatic, formal-logical, systemic, analytical and other methods. The result of this research yielded a conclusion that warranty within the system of Russian civil law is an independent legal instrument and is not a part of the system of means of securing performance of obligations, even in presence of coincidence with some of such means. The main criterion for distinction consists in the different functional and target designation of such legal means.

Keywords: contract, contract law, law of obligations, obligation, guaranteeing fulfilment of obligations, representation about circumstances, civil liability, civil law, additional obligation, reason for an obligation

Review: The subject of this research consists in the analysis of the experience of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on reform of the system of taxation of oil and natural gas extraction, which can present significant interest for Russian executive branch and researchers in the conditions of reform of Russian natural resource legislation, as well as introduction of the excess profit tax (Article 25.4 of the Taxation Code of the Russian Federation). Moreover, this is the first Russian-language writer article on exploring the content of the new PRC law “On Resource Tax”, which will be enacted from September 1, 2020. Based on the works of Russian, American, and Chinese scholars alongside Russia’s and China’s legislations, the article employs the method of synchronized and diachronic (historical) comparison and general scientific methods (formal-logical, analysis, synthesis) for determining peculiarities of China’s approach towards execution of legal reforms. The following specificities of China’s legal reforms were determined: preliminary formulation of goals of the legislative changes at the highest levels of state government, testing of the legislative changes in the territories of separate provinces, priority of goals of national development over budget revenue, adaptation of traditions of China’s legal technique to the requirements of foreign investors. The conclusions made in this research can be of interest for lawmakers, as well as all parties interested in comparative legal studies.  

Keywords: tax history, income tax, foreign investment, tax reform, China, mining, comparative law, taxation, environmental tax, natural resource payments

Review: The subject of this research is the problem of understanding and interpretation of the meaning and designation of one of the key concept of modern legal lexicon – “legitimacy”. Legitimacy became an attribute of the current scientific paradigm of legal thinking, because broadening the area of application, it is used as a certain standard of highest legality, often perplexing comprehension of the problems of legal theory, as on etymological level its leans only on one of the Latin versions of the word “legal”. In the same platitude, legitimate legality and legal legitimacy are a common tautology, which in the context of theory of law and philosophy of law, insistently dictates the necessity to clarify this term and definition. Research methodology suggests the analysis of the problem of legality-legitimacy from the perspective of differentiating legal and other disciplinary approaches: political scientific, sociological, etc. The novelty of this study consists in the problematic-critical analysis of the concept of “legitimacy” on the context of theory of law and philosophy of law. The conducted research demonstrates that the problem of legitimacy represents is a terminological substitution within the framework of legal-positivistic doctrine for the so-called not “purely” legal aspects: sociological, psychological, political scientific, and other. 

Keywords: rule of law, legality as a requirement, legality as a principle, legality as a method, concept of law, living law, legitimacy of legal norms, legitimacy, legality, legitimation

Review: The subject of this research is the problem of interpretation of continuity and novelty in carrying out historical-philosophical and problematic-theoretical reconstructions of legal doctrines of the past and modernity. The absence of due knowledge on the origin, history of acquisition and application of theoretical ideas of the past often leads to significant modifications, distortions and loss of historical linkage within the legal picture of the world. The repetition of legal ideas and theoretical constructs of the past is natural, but firstly it can and should be viewed as a methodological prerequisite for searching of approaches and means to substantiate the interests to certain aspects of law, and secondly, for ensuring scientific value of modern research, it must be clarified not by the conventionality of scientific knowledge, but based on the reconstruction of origin, application and valid meaning and designation of ideas. The methodology leans on the comparative analysis of legal ideas of the past and modernity in synchronic and diachronic angle. The novelty of the conducted research consists in interpretation of the problem of novelty in legal science based on the requirement for preservation of continuity in terms of their historical-philosophical and problematic-theoretical reconstruction. At the same time, such requirement reveals in a number of specific reconstructions and examples of utilization of methodological approaches for their conduct.

Keywords: legal norm, legal realism, recognition in law, novelty of the legal ideas, methods of legal philosophy, natural law, Stammler, Ihering, Bierling, Hart

Review: The subject of this research is the legal regulation of franchising at the current stage of economic development. The object of this research is social relations emerging as a result of conducting business activity in the form of franchising. The present state of legal regulation of franchising in the Russian Federation is being analyzed. Special attention is paid to the aspects of regulation of this institution in the conditions of digitalization. The author examines the prospects of using smart contracts in the sphere of franchising, peculiarities of digital elements within a franchise, concept of digital franchising, and prospects of its regulation. The scientific novelty consists in examination of franchising in the conditions of digital economy from the perspective of analysis and determination of the prospect of legal regulation of this institutions. It is concluded that the improvement of regulation of franchising in the context of digital economy in the Russian Federation is possible through the following avenues: 1) simplified procedure of state registration for granting exclusive rights based on the agreement of commercial concession; establishment of alternative methods of identification of the entity who expresses statement of intention; 2) introduction of amendments to the Part 3 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation for assigning legal status to such objects as cloud technologies and big data; 3) improvement of norms of the Article 1033 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation to specify the admissibility of restrictive terms with regards to user activity in the Internet; 4) formulation of regulatory norms for rendering digital services,.

Keywords: regulation, internet site, computer software, exclusive right, intellectual property, digital, contract, franchising, franchise, restrictive terms