Business Contracts in Russia

Abstract

This article is the first part of the three articles work that handles business contracts in Russia on a general level. As a business or entrepreneurial contract is regarded in the Russian legal doctrine a contract, in which at least one party is a subject of the enterprise activities and by which the rights and duties connected with the enterprise activities have arisen, changed, or terminated. As being the civil law contract, a business contract is subject to the application of the general rules and principles of the civil law regulation. However, its specific nature must be observed, which is transpired through the Civil Code norms concerning the subjects, objects, contracting procedure and content, as well as liability. The specific nature of an entrepreneurial contract is particularly apparent in accepting a commercial custom as a general legal source applicable to it, as well as in special proceedings for resolving disputes between the parties of entrepreneurial contracts, which are regarded as economic disputes to be handled in the arbitrazh court. Business contract regulation in Russia is characterized by growing significance of the judiciary in it and by enlarged dispositivity of the regulative rules. This article will be continued by the presentations on disturbances related to contracting and their consequences (including invalidity of contract) interpretation and fulfilment of contract as well as change and rescission of contract.