Digitalization of Construction of Facilities of the Fuel and Energy Complex

Abstract

The advent of new technologies and the evolving economic landscape have prompted a need to rethink the existing regulatory framework governing market players. Digitalization forces to create new legal mechanisms for regulating emerging economic relations. These include the development of normative legal acts that strike a balance between ensuring the public interest and business development, the introduction of new institutions or the modernization of existing ones, and the broad integration of various spheres of social life. The current legal framework presents shortcomings that create difficulties in introducing new technologies into the economy. This article will examine the existing legal issues of surrounding the use of new technologies in the construction of fuel and energy infrastructure facilities. It will focus on the legal nature of BIMmodeling, tort liability in the application of technologies in the construction/design process, and the problems of widespread introduction of smart contracts in construction activities. In preparing this scientific article, we relied on normative legal acts regulating the introduction of new technologies in economic activity, a small amount of judicial practice reflecting the current attitude of the judicial system to the legal regulation of new technologies, developed concepts reflecting the main areas of activity in the development of digitalization, and news portals. The following scientific methods were employed in the research process: analysis, comparison, description, interpretation, synthesis, abstraction, and analogy. This paper presents the current discussions on the mentioned problems of digitalization in the construction of facilities of the fuel and energy complex. It addresses the need/absence of the need for detailed legal regulation, the legal nature of the ‘liability’ of objects of digitalization, and gaps in the current legislation in terms of regulating the mechanism of smart contracts. The existing legal regulation issues surrounding digitalization in the construction of facilities of the fuel and energy complex, as outlined in this article, require a comprehensive solution that strikes a balance between economic development and effective legal regulation.