Foreign civil doctrine of smart contracts

Abstract

The article is devoted to a topic of great scientific and practical importance in the modern context of creating a digital economy ecosystemб to the smart contract phenomenon. The article focuses on the foreign civilistic doctrine of the smart contract study. The main discussion questions about the legal and technological nature of the smart contract, the ways of its implementation in the current contract law of each country, the approaches of national legislators to solving this issue and the functional nature of the smart contract are considered. The main disputable problems are the legal and technological nature of the smart contract, the ways of its implementation in the current contract law of each country, the approaches of national legislators to solving this problem and about the functional nature of the smart contract. The article also involves a comparative legal aspect: it analyzes the approaches of the Russian legislator and representatives of the domestic legal doctrine to the smart contract place in the pandect system of Russian civil law in comparison with the foreign legal systems settlement of similar issues. It is noted that using the positive experience of the smart contracts legal regulation should be taken into account when creating and correcting the regulatory platform of the digital economy in the Russian Federation. The article evaluates the legal innovation of Part 2 of Article 309 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (RF CC). The description is given of the innovation developers positions given in the Explanatory Note to the relevant draft law; the investigation is performed on the technological terms used in the current version of the RF CC with regard to the electronic form of a deal and smart contract. In addition, the article raises the problem that is well known to the foreign legal doctrine: the problem of the computer code credibility and the distrust of the counterparties of each other. Attention is paid to the advantages of the smart contract, which are discussed by foreign legal scientists, as well as representatives of other related sciences. In the conclusion of the article, the main findings are given that demonstrate the authors’ view on the issues considered in the article.