The paper substantiates a strategic concept for the development of legal scholarship in the context of technological transition. It assesses the contemporary regulatory landscape amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution and identifies pathways for overcoming the lag of regulatory frameworks behind the challenges posed by the technological environment. The authors examine the scientific dimensions of the program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, “Priority 2030: Law for Technological Leadership,” particularly with respect to the objectives assigned to the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL). The paper analyzes the University’s research and development policy, shaped by the qualitative transformation of the modern Russian legal system resulting from profound changes in social relations within the technological sector. It outlines the key components of the University’s research strategy aimed at advancing Russia’s technological leadership. The study concludes that this strategy is directed toward substantiating an anticipatory legal infrastructure in strategically significant sectors of economic and social development. The paper defines the objectives of legal research within the framework of the “innovative university” model, the essence of which lies in establishing a new legal equilibrium for the technological sphere across the economy, social relations, and Russia’s international engagement. The authors justify the necessity of forming a new system of legal scholarship, taking into account the contemporary convergence of technical, natural-scientific, and humanities-based knowledge.
The paper further examines the evolving social status of legal scholarship, including the system of practical demand for legal research, the promotion of legal products, and regulatory innovation. It also presents data on the University’s emerging system of partnerships, which are increasingly interdisciplinary in character.

An economy characterized by mixed capital underscores the necessity of regulating market relations involving entrepreneurial actors. Measures of state support for entrepreneurship – both direct and indirect – are aimed at ensuring the stable functioning of market economy mechanisms. At the same time, the role of direct support measures has increased, including subsidies, state guarantees, preferential loans (credits), and related instruments. Among indirect measures, infrastructure-based support (such as the establishment of special economic zones) and tax incentives are of particular importance for the industrial sector. This paper examines the legal issues surrounding the stimulation of industrial entrepreneurship within the defense-industrial complex, which is essential to securing sustainable growth, national security, and state sovereignty. Certain arguments and conclusions may also be applicable to related sectors of the real economy. The study elucidates new conceptual approaches and identifies potential directions for the development of Russian legislation governing economic incentive measures for industrial entrepreneurship in the defense-industrial complex.

The author focuses on three interrelated clusters of issues: the financial law framework supporting technological sovereignty; the legal regulation of artificial intelligence in the financial sector; and prospects for improving the regulation of cryptocurrency circulation. The paper emphasizes the importance of the timely adaptation of legal regulation to contemporary economic and technological challenges. Particular attention is devoted to the role of financial law in creating the conditions necessary for Russia’s technological leadership, including the regulation of financial technologies, mechanisms of public financing, taxation, and other legal instruments aimed at developing the national technological base. In the section devoted to artificial intelligence, the paper identifies promising areas for its application within financial relations, as well as the associated legal risks. The analysis of digital currency regulation reveals gaps in the conceptual framework and outlines directions for the further development of financial legislation in this field.

Drawing upon the theoretical and methodological foundations of civil law scholarship, the author analyzes the challenges and consequences of the digital transformation of civil transactions. The article concludes that as technological modernization expands and deepens, the transformation of relations within the digital environment—inevitably accompanied by gaps in their legislative regulation—objectively triggers a process of diminishing certainty in civil law’s regulatory impact on digital relations. This development signals a paradigmatic shift in prevailing conceptions regarding the orientation and method of civil law regulation. The author substantiates the conclusion that the future of private law regulation under conditions of digitalization lies in the emergence of new forms of governance, including the increasing use of “soft law” instruments. Given the specific features of the digital environment and the continuous evolution of information technologies, there are grounds to anticipate that one of the stable trends in the regulation of digital private-law relations will be a transition from formal statutory regulation—moving from absolutely determinate norms to relatively determinate ones, that is, from general and abstract rules through situational (causal) regulation toward individualized and concrete legal solutions—to nonbinding regulatory mechanisms, including soft law and various forms of self-regulation.

The objectives of family law regulation include strengthening the institution of the family, preserving traditional family values, and ensuring the exercise and protection of the rights of family members. The legal protection of both public and private interests in the family sphere has led to a differentiation of regulatory concepts applicable to various types of family relations, resulting in an artificial fragmentation of the subject matter of family law. Legal norms governing the personal non-property relations of family members are undergoing a process of constitutionalization, which entails a reassessment of their content through the prism of constitutional values. At the same time, the regulation of property relations within the family reflects an increasing reliance on civil law principles aimed at ensuring the stability of civil circulation, a trend that reduces the degree of legal protection afforded to the property interests of family members. Given that the institutions of family, motherhood, fatherhood, and childhood are protected as constitutional values, such protection should be accompanied by the development at the legislative level of an effective system of family law guarantees safeguarding the property interests of family members. The unification of value-based approaches to the regulation of both personal nonproperty and property relations among family members—directed toward achieving the objectives of family law regulation—will not only preserve the integrity of the subject matter of family law as a distinct branch, but also promote the harmonization of private and public interests within the family law sphere.

This article surveys contemporary judicial practice concerning the imposition of civil liability on banks for the bad-faith exercise of rights and performance of obligations in the course of banking operations and transactions. The principal factors contributing to the growth of unfair practices by banks include the digitalization of banking activities and the expansion of banks into intermediary services designed to generate additional revenue from non-banking services. The author analyzes the main instances of bad-faith conduct arising under various types of banking agreements.
The following examples are examined: the adherence of parent entities of Russian subsidiary banks to sanctions regimes and the freezing of funds held in the accounts of Russian companies; the circumvention of rules requiring that clients be informed of the terms of consumer credit agreements through the use of remote interaction with borrowers; the unilateral modification by banks of the terms of bank deposit agreements (including interest rates and maturity periods) when funds are debited from deposits pursuant to enforcement documents; and the imposition of prohibitive tariffs.
The paper concludes that it is necessary to strengthen the civil liability of banks in order to deter unfair practices, to refine the legal framework governing the remote conclusion of contracts, and to expand banks’ disclosure obligations.

This paper presents a comprehensive study of the information law framework supporting the achievement of the national development goals of the Russian Federation as an element of a unified public-law mechanism of governance. It examines the interrelationship between the national development goals and the foundations of the constitutional order, the safeguarding of state, informational, technological, and cognitive sovereignty, the protection of individual rights in the context of digital transformation, and the advancement of the digital state, digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and state information systems. On the basis of comparative legal, historicallegal, and doctrinal analysis, the author substantiates the need to move from fragmented subordinate regulation toward the legislative institutionalization of the components of this mechanism. Particular attention is devoted to the legal regime of data, information technologies, and information systems; the status of participants in the relevant legal relations; the assessment of legal risks; the effectiveness of strategic projects; and legal liability for the failure to achieve national development goals.

The paper is devoted to the protection of copyright objects in the context of the active use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in content creation. It examines practical issues of identifying the author/copyright holder, distinguishing permissible borrowing and adaptation in the creation of digital objects. The importance of modernizing the Russian system of intellectual rights to maintain scientific and technological leadership and to balance private and public interests is substantiated. The concept of complex objects of intellectual property rights occupies a central place: alongside objects named in the law, unnamed complex objects of the digital environment (websites, platform accounts) are analyzed, their classification and a two-tier protection model are proposed, with a distinction being made between the platform and the hosted content. The legal framework for digital avatars, including cases of using an individual’s image, is examined separately, along with the contractual terms of AI services and methods for documenting evidence of authorship and rights. Considerable attention is given to the free use of works and citation on the Internet: criteria of lawfulness (purpose, scope, attribution of author and source) are identified, and the need for legislative clarification of the rules of citation for online formats and works created by artificial intelligence is highlighted.

The paper examines problems of Russian labor law caused by the transformation of the labor market. The author identifies the following among these problems: the narrowing of the scope of labor law norms; the need to extend the construction of employment relationship to all persons engaged in dependent, hired labor; the need to develop pre-judicial and extra-judicial methods of protecting labor rights; and the justification of the construction of “technolabor” (technotrud). When using technolabor, the final result of labor activity will be largely determined by the functionality and capabilities of the technology used, while the employee’s functions will primarily be aimed at formulating the initial task, monitoring, analyzing, and correcting the process and result, requiring knowledge in a specific expert field or fields, as well as the presence of specialized digital competencies. The author proves the thesis about the universality of the construction of employment relationship and its ability to respond to the challenges facing modern labor law.

The key directions in the development of modern criminal law doctrine are identified and systematized based on research conducted by members of the Department of Criminal Law, Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL), published in 2025. It is established that the focus of scholarly attention is on the problems of the transformation of criminal law policy in the context of extraordinary challenges, rethinking social danger as a material attribute of crime, the essence of punishment and the limits of formalizing its application, as well as the development of digital and economic criminal law. It is shown that the extraordinary nature of modern threats enhances the importance of consistency, legal certainty and the quality of criminal law. It is substantiated that the category of public danger retains its significance as a material element of a crime, but receives a new doctrinal interpretation in the context of a debate on the relationship between public danger and the elements of a crime, as well as in connection with the problems of the insignificance of an act. It is concluded that digital criminal law is evolving as a field aimed at adapting the provisions of criminal law to the digitalization of social relations, and economic criminal law as a field in which the limits of criminal law intervention in economic relations require clarification, including in the context of the increasing complexity of intersectoral connections.

The paper examines current issues of digitalization of forensic expert activity in the context of the development of a new private theory of forensic expertology. The study focuses on the analysis of the transformation of traditional objects of expert examination into digital form and the associated procedural complexities. The theoretical basis of the study rests on the theory of digitalization of forensic expert activity, which shapes the methodological foundations for working with digital traces as new objects of examination, directions of using neural network AI algorithms in forensic expert activity, and the transformation of forensic experts’ competencies. Particular attention is given to procedural issues in engaging specialists in the appointed forensic examinations, the collection of digital traces, and the evaluation of expert opinions, including: the insufficient level of IT competencies of law enforcers, the limited authority of specialists in civil and arbitration proceedings, difficulties in determining their competencies, and the verification of the integrity of digital traces. A comprehensive analysis of the interaction between procedural norms and new forms of expert examination is provided, as well as ways to optimize the work of specialists in the context of digitalization.

The paper highlights the leading role of forensic science in the comprehensive provision of national security. In the face of external and internal threats, forensics is a center of attraction for innovation in science and technology. It is concluded that forensic science as an applied legal science has the unique property of cementing the framework of heterogeneous knowledge borrowed from various fields of the humanities, natural sciences, engineering and innovative technologies. Forensic science, through the synergy of science and practice, creatively adapts methods from other sciences to improve the effectiveness of law enforcement. The paper shows significance of the scientific school of the Department of Forensic Science of Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL) in the system of scientific and technical support for combating criminal activity and implementation of scientific achievements in the modern educational process. The importance of studying forensics in the training of lawyers of all fields is noted. The author sees the prospects of forensics in the system of innovative legal education in the inextricable link between science and practice, and the introduction of advanced educational technologies into training.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of current problems of Russian private international law that have arisen under the influence of unilateral coercive measures of unfriendly states and responsive counter-sanction mechanisms. The author examines the transformation of key institutions of private international law: application of foreign law and public policy exception, circumvention of the law, the personal law of legal entities, international settlements, corporate structuring, protection of foreign investments, recognition and enforcement of foreign judicial and arbitral awards, as well as the exclusive jurisdiction of Russian courts in disputes involving sanctioned persons. Particular attention is given to changing contractual practices, abandoning unreliable currencies and jurisdictions, reorienting foreign economic relations towards countries in the Asia-Pacific region, BRICS, Africa, and Latin America, developing settlements in national currencies, digital financial assets, and the use of alternative payment mechanisms. The need to adapt international legal and conflict of laws instruments to the new conditions of sanctions pressure is substantiated.

The paper is devoted to the study of the main trends in the development of environmental law at the current stage of ensuring the technological leadership of the Russian Federation. Its main goals are established by state strategic planning documents, primarily the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated February 28, 2024 No. 145. The study demonstrates the importance of legal support for the implementation of new domestic technologies in environmental protection and natural resource management, the most significant of which are specified in Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated June 18, 2024 No. 529 “On Approval of Priority Areas of Scientific and Technological Development and the List of the Most Important Science-Intensive Technologies.” Such technologies are classified by the Decree as among the most important critical science-driven technologies requiring rapid development and integration into the economy, including within the framework of national projects to ensure the technological leadership of the Russian Federation. Effective legal support for their implementation is a crucial task facing environmental law science. In accordance with the National Development Goals of the Russian Federation, promising areas for the development of environmental law are identified. The main goals include legal support for the transition to a circular economy, the implementation of a pilot project on setting quotas for pollutant emissions in cities, the resolution of the problem of eliminating hazardous sites causing accumulated environmental damage, ensuring rational and sustainable use of natural resources, natural and climate projects and adaptation to global climate change, as well as the development of a system of environmental education, environmental awareness, and the formation of a new environmental culture.