Grib, V.V. Legal nature of public share placement

Abstract: This article is devoted to one of unresolved problems of legal theory: defining legal nature of public share placement. In order to solve this problem, the author studies four main theories for the legal nature of public placement of shares: investment contract theory, unilateral dispositive deal; theory of bilateral dispositive deal, and the theory of the sales contract, providing evaluation of each of the above-mentioned theories. Within the framework of evaluation of the above-mentioned theory, the author makes a conclusion that the theories of unilateral and bilateral dispositive deals are not viable, and they may not be used for defining the legal nature of public placement of shares. However, the author also makes a conclusion that the followers of both the investment contract theory and sales contract theory provide viable arguments in support of their positions. However, none of these theories may be recognized as universal. Due to the above-mentioned situation, the author offers to use the theory of investment contract of sales contract depending on the purposes for which the shares are acquired by a subscriber.

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