Legal regulation of financial instruments in the digital economy of Russia

Abstract

The article analyzes the legal nature of new ways of financial support (joint investment) of Russian business projects - crowdfunding, crowdlanding, crowdinvesting. The first mention of crowdprojects appeared in the early 2000s in the United States. Acting as an alternative option for business investment, crowdinstuments of financial relations have become widespread in other countries. It is shown that the emergence of crowdeconomics tools was preceded by changes in the socio-economic and technological spheres: processes scaling, international economic integration, active digitalization of economic processes, global financial crisis, cyclical nature of crisis phenomena of the world economy, inactivity in risky decision making on the part of banking sector and venture funds, high level of creditworthiness of Russian banking sector, new world technical revolution, etc. New financial instruments have not yet received a sufficient level of development and distribution in Russia due to the relative novelty and significant distrust of domestic sector of private investors to new, joint investment projects. At the same time, there has been a radical change in legal approaches to the perception of crowdeconomy tools over the past five years: from cardinal rejection, declaring various funds as surrogates of cryptocurrencies, developing draft laws on criminal liability for their turnover to the development of the digital financial assets law and adoption of the law regulating commercial crowdfunding. Effective from January 1, 2020 federal Law № 259-FZ (FL) of 02.08.2019 On Attracting Investments Using Investment Platforms and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation, despite the obligations, requirements and restrictions established by it, served as an impetus for the development of relations in this area, both directly investment platforms and eco-systems serving crowdfunding activities. The text of the law clarified the procedure for investors interaction, but also raises many questions regarding the provision of supervisory functions and registration procedure of digital rights.