In writing the article the author has set himself the task of examining peculiarities of the process of legal institutionalization by means of the legislation regulating political parties. The following methods were used to accomplish this task: a historical method, a method of legal hermeneutics, and a formal-juridical method. As a result of the survey, while comparing the methods of political regulation, the author criticizes affiliation of the political parties' institution to the branch of the legal science and brings the political parties' institution to the forefront as an object at which relevant legal norms are aimed. Therefore, the object of legal institutionalization is always dependent on the goals pursued in the process of formulating, adopting and implementing rules within the framework of the legal institution. The author determines general and special elements that define institutional characteristics of Russian political parties organizations. Common elements depend on the chosen model of state regulation of relations as they affect the nature and content of the law, their legal nature and affiliation to a certain branch, as well as the mechanism and principles of legal regulation and peculiarities of parties involved. It is suggested that the type of systematization of legal norms, as well as objectives of legal regulation and the interests that are being pursued in legal relations in question should be referred to as special components of the legal institutionalization of political parties.

This article examines some issues of applying the institute of federal interference in foreign federations and the current state of the Russian legal framework in the context of possible regulation of federal interference, as well as the relationship between the Federal Government and constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The article, on the basis of a comparative legal survey, examines the legal nature and features of fiscal payments and parafiscal payments. The paper compares doctrinal notions of fiscal charges and parafiscalities proposed by leading representatives of the Financial Law science, provides an authorized definition of a parafiscality as a compulsory payment established by any public authority for the purpose of financing activities of persons exercising public functions but representing neither public authorities nor local governments and paid to a separate fund that is not involved in financing total budget expenditures.

The article deals with specifics of principles of the budget system of the Russian Federation with regard to various types of mandatory fiscal payments. The author defines the scope of these principles in respect of monetary funds generated by means of collecting payments in question. The author classifies mandatory fiscal payments in accordance with a diminishing role of legislative acts they play in determining the elements of their structures. The author highlights and justifies the main attribute applied to identify a mandatory payment as parafiscal. It is noted that the business community is interested in improving the system of non-tax payments. The author concludes that the existence of parafiscalities in the legal system of the Russian Federation causes a number of legal problems, and that evaluation of prospects for reforming the system of non-tax payments should be preceded by clarification of the legal nature of its elements.

The author addresses the issues of providing precontractual information to the borrower of the micro-finance organization. The paper analyzes regulatory requirements applied for providing information prior to the contract, compares provisions of the Law "On Consumer Credit (Loan)” and the Law "On Microfinancing and Microfinance Organizations” and analyzes their conformity with European Parliament Directive № 2008/48/EC and the Directive of the EU Council "On Consumer Credit Contracts and Repeal of EU Council Directive 87/102/EEC."

The paper examines new provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation set forth in Article 327.1 and devoted to contingent performance of an obligation. It is stated that domestic civil law was previously aware of the concept of contingent performance of the obligation. It is noted that reciprocal obligations on the basis of literal interpretation of provisions of Article 327.1 and Article 328 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation may be regarded as one type of obligations with contingent performance. Also, an opportunity of stipulating in a contract actions and circumstances that may condition the performance of obligations has never contradicted foundations of civil law. Finally, the notion of the contingent transaction is not new to domestic civil law. The paper states that due to the introduction of the rule enshrined in Article 327.1 of the RF Civil Code the issues of determining the legal nature of contingent performance of the obligation and interrelation between this notion and the notion of the contingent transaction have emerge full blown. It is reasonable to conclude that neither the law-maker nor court practice associate the performance of the obligation with contingent transactions. In general, the new rule is assessed favorably, as the law-maker has recognized the possibility of including conditions that are fully dependent on the will of the parties (potestative conditions) and determine the performance of the obligation, implementation, modification or termination of rights under the contract.

The article, on the basis of relevant civil law legislation analysis and law enforcement practice concerning the use of earnest money to secure performance of an organizational commitment, identifies problems associated with its legal nature and the mechanism for applying earnest money to secure the organizational obligation, i.e. non-pecuniary, nonreciprocal obligation without any consideration. The author systematizes and examines various theoretical and practical approaches to justifying the validity of applying an existing concept of earnest money to secure the organizational commitment. Particular attention is drawn to the scholars' opinions that are of primary importance for law enforcement. The paper determines constitutive characteristics of the organizational commitment. On the basis of these characteristics the author concludes that effective civil law does not provide for any mechanism of applying earnest money to secure the organizational commitment; the existing mechanism for applying earnest money is incompatible with its constitutive characteristics. The above problems are being investigated in the light of major development trends in the doctrine and law enforcement practice with due regard to legal determinations of the higher courts.

The article analyzes antimonopoly and judicial practice of determining the amount of penalty and the procedure of charging it under the RF Law "On the Procurement Contract System." The author considers the manner in which the contractor entrenches conditions that stipulate liability in the contract analyzing and explaining approaches of antimonopoly authorities and courts. Particular attention is paid to the penalty retention from a bank guarantee and monetary funds. The article shows interrelation between the mechanisms of penalty, bank guarantee and monetary funds. The author examines the issues of interrelation between fines, penalties and grounds for imposing them, justifies the statement concerning unreasonably high amount of legal penalties imposed on suppliers, analyzes risks associated with excessive amount of penalties for both customers and suppliers. The article proposes to address the issue of penalties in terms of the need to balance private and public interests within the framework of the procurement contractual system.

The article examines legal characteristics of domiciled promissory notes and peculiarities of their civil circulation. The author explains the concept of a domiciled promissory note and defines main types of such promissory notes. The author determines persons entitled to include a domicile clause into the promissory note. Also, the paper defines the legal status of domiciliary and legal consequences of including the domicile clause into the text of the promissory note for different participants of promissory notes circulation. The paper provides analysis of the court practice in disputes associated with domiciled promissory notes, and indicates directions for the promissory notes regulatory framework reform.

The article examines the requirements set forth in Part 1 Article 75 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the RF CC) and relevant clarifications given in the Decision of the Plenum of the RF Supreme Court of 27 June 2013 № 19 (as amended on 29 November 2016) "On Application of Legislation Governing Grounds and Procedure of Exempting from Criminal Responsibility." Attention is drawn to imperfections of certain provisions of the Law (the title of Article 75 of the RF CC, characteristics of a person committing a minor crime or a crime of medium gravity for the first time, voluntary nature of a full confession, facilitation of crime detection and investigation), as well as ambiguity of some clarifications of the Plenum (when a person ceases to be a public danger, facilitating crime detection and investigation, compensation for damage and making reparation for a wrong, possibility of redressing harm with the consent of the person who has committed a crime). It is concluded that, in order to be exempt from criminal responsibility under Part 1 Article 75 of the RF CC, the whole entirety of circumstances indicated therein is necessary and sufficient.

When a criminal law rule is applied, an important role is plaid by the quality of the rule structure. This is particularly important when it comes to the protection of such a value as security of the State in the area of state secrets protected by law. From the standpoint of the quality of the criminal law, the author reviews the latest legislative amendments in this field. Legislative norms analyzed in the article provide for the following constituent parts of crimes: Art. 275 of the Criminal Code "Treason;" Art. 276 of the Criminal Code "Espionage;" Art. 283 of the Criminal Code "Divulging State Secrets;" Art. 2831 of the Criminal Code "Illegal Receipt of Information Constituting State Secrets." On the basis of the quality criteria of the criminal law, the author identifies problems related to the formation of the Criminal Code provisions in question and, as the result of the survey, proposes new versions of the rules of law. In the author's view, one of such problems amounts to the low level of criminal responsibility differentiation and, as a consequence, the author proposes to differentiate criminal responsibility in accordance with the subject matter of the crime, i.e. a quality criterion of the information divulged.

The article analyses the concepts and essence of the terms innovation activity, innovation, innovative project. On the basis of the analysis, the author develops his own definition to reveal the essence of the innovation activity. The paper examines constituent parts of crimes available under domestic criminal legislation that protect the results of innovative activity. In particular, Art. 147 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation enumerates acts that infringe inventive and patent rights. In addition, the author attempts to predict the impact of the innovation process on criminal law and to formulate rules of criminalization of acts associated with attacks on the results of innovative activities that may emerge in the future. On the basis of the survey, the author gives a presumption that can be useful to formulate rules regulating responsibility for attacks on the results of innovation activities in the future.

The article provides the following definition of the psycho-physiological state of the subject of the crime: integral functional response of the human body to changes in external and internal environment based on the complex interaction of mental, physiological and behavioral structures influencing the degree of conscious and volitional regulation of his behavior during the commission of criminal acts. The author concludes that the notion of the psycho-physiological state is broader than "mental state" and defines human behavior as an integral reaction of the organism to changes in the external and internal environment. A criminal law value of the psycho-physiological state lies in its impact on crime characterization and imposition of punishment. The following psycho-physiological states have been identified as having a criminal law value: passion, the state of the mother murdering a newborn child, intoxication, pregnancy and minority of the offender.

The article discusses the criteria of determining the substantive element of jurisdiction in matters related to the enforcement of final court decisions. The main provisions to specify the substantive elements of jurisdiction when dealing with the enforcement of final court decisions should be based on: the nature of the issues dealt with by the court (objective, subjective, objective-subjective); relationship to the achievement of the purposes of punishment (connected with the goals of punishment or not related) and the impact of the verdict (affects the sentence in whole or in part). The degree of importance of a criterion and its determining character in relation to the substantive grounds of jurisdiction cannot be defined uniquely for all issues to be considered at this stage of a case.

The article discusses controversial theoretical and practical issues of the simultaneous application of suspension and pre-trial detention or house arrest. Given the comprehensive analysis of the current Russian criminal procedural law, as well as its application, there is a judgment that the choice of the given restraints concerning the suspect or accused person in exceptional circumstances does not preclude the application of a suspension to the above named persons. The study proposes specific application-oriented recommendations.

The article describes modern foreign interrogation techniques aimed at checking the accuracy of the information in a criminal case. Based on the analysis of various aspects of the application of the techniques under consideration, the author concludes that it is advisable to discuss relevant techniques in the national forensic science in order to define the prospects and possibilities of implementing recent criminal justice practices in Russia.

Taking OECD Model Convention and the Commentary to the OECD Model Convention as an example the article considers criteria for determining tax residency of legal persons and approaches to situations of double tax residency. The author examines the features of two main approaches to the problem and reveals their features: the place of effective management and control and mutual agreement procedure.

The article discusses the issues of the adversarial principle in modern criminal proceedings of the Republic of Azerbaijan and justifies the conclusion that this principle has effect not only in the lower courts, but also in pre-trial proceedings whenever the matter shall be settled by the court. The author identifies the problem of contentiousness regulation in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic Azerbaijan and justifies proposals for further legislative development and empowerment to ensure legitimate protection of equality of the parties.

The article discusses the legal challenges of improving State policy in the field of environmental development. According to the survey of existing instruments of the State strategic planning the authors formulate the theoretical concept of "sustainable development”, identify key factors and indicators of environmental development and the main legal problems of realization of the State policy in the area of environmental development of the Russian Federation at the present stage. It is proved that the State strategic planning documents in the field of environmental development must be approved with due account for the continuity, risk assessment conditioned by the scientific and technological development of the country, the analysis of their effectiveness, degree of influence on the subsequent standard-setting, economy and management, as well as a legally enshrined responsibility for the failure to comply with them.

This review briefly describes the II International Scientific Symposium 'Business and Law. "German and French as the Languages of the European Business Community" ' held on April 7, 2017 at the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL). The authors mark the distinctive framework of the event: the speakers made their presentations on business and law in German and French. The most important and interesting reports, made at the event, are available in this journal.

This article is devoted to the 30 years of continuous development of the Russian banking system. In this regard, the author investigates the type and status of credit institutions, existing in the Russian banking system, identifies the specific issues of the legal field and proposes forward-looking ideas to resolve them.

The article questions the possibilities of legal education in addressing the challenges of human resourcing of subjects of a 'small business' entreprise. The study concludes that students enrolled in programs of higher legal education, possess potential capacity for independent business and legal support for small business. For the potential capacity to be revealed, it is essential that the content of disciplines related to the legal regulation of small business, as well as teaching techniques, be improved. The validity of conclusions is based on the results of sociological research, which represents the answers of a significant number of undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Kutafin Moscow State Law University enrolled in different programs and forms of education.

The article discusses the institutions of foreign law established in sections I and III of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as a result of the reform of law of obligations. The analysis of the rules of estoppel and indemnity provided an opportunity to highlight not only their legal structures, but also to show the gaps, inconsistencies and shortcomings in normative regulation of these institutions. The comparative legal analysis of the new rules of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and similar foreign regulations showed that the institutions developed in the jurisprudence of the State case law and are based on the terminology and alien to our rule of law conceptual apparatus, thus these can not be cost-free for the Russian civil law. For example, when considering estoppel challenging transaction or statement of its invalidity under Art. 166 cl. 2 and 5 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the author concludes that unscrupulous contractors may use the principle of estoppel for concluding agreements unlawful in content terms. Identifying features of the legal construction of indemnity under Art. 406.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the author concludes that one more institute has appeared in our civil law whereby one party undertakes to carry out compensatory risk-sharing for those effects that are not related to its actions on good performance. Risk-sharing requires an answer to the questions not related to the issues of liability. Unfortunately, the relationship of the parties to the contract on possible restrictions on part of the risk, which a party to a contract including a damages clause is obliged to take (not take) are not regulated in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

The article analyzes the legal regulation of the insolvency of individuals in Germany and Russia. In German law the multipurpose bankruptcy procedure for individuals has been replaced by separate insolvency process for consumers and persons engaged in independent economic activity. Basically, in Russia multipurpose bankruptcy procedure has been introduced.

The article addresses the issue of gender aspect of the labor activity in general and business in particular, as well as differentiation of areas of "private" and "public" in modern German separate idiomatic expressions. Particular attention is given to the analysis of the implementation of the gender policy in the Duden Dictionary. It is concluded that the existing distortions of the image of women and men in the private sphere and the sphere of business, as well as in the implementation of gender policies in the examples from the dictionary. In conclusion, it is proved that a modern dictionary of the German language is an important tool for the implementation of gender policy in the German language. The author reveals positive dynamics of the development of the German language from a gender perspective, as well as the positive trends in the reform of the German language from the position of gender policy.

The influence of French law in international trade is now called into question because of the globalization of trade and the pre-eminence of Anglo-Saxon law. The challenge of the new attractiveness of French law is to present an alternative to the hegemony of Common Law and the French achievements are encouraging in the field of arbitration and international contracts. The attractiveness of the law becomes a means and not an end to achieve a legal system where freedom rhymes with security.

More and more spaces have become legal territories in addition to the classic state areas: Internet, information space, the living world (natural molecules and genes), environment and virtual money. In addition, with regard to industrial innovation, it is those who propose tomorrow's norms that will build the next legal territories, and lawyers note a lag in relation to technical progress. Many of these evolutions call into question some of the sovereignty rights of the state, and we note the evolution of the law in favor of large companies and NGOs. Each state thus has to introduce innovations in the right to be present in the fields of technology and social sciences, to put forward their diplomatic advantages in the service of the new world concepts. And here France has its own cards, its approach has largely changed in recent years.

This article is devoted to the study of the French legal language in the light of its variability. The interest in this subject is due to the fact that legal language is recognized by people as abstruse language that leads to its misunderstanding, aided by its slang. The relationship between the law and its discourse is worthy of serious study, while lawyers should be aware of links between knowledge and discourse, as well as of the changes of their language in order to influence them. In this way the present study is surely new.

The aim of this article is to deal with environmental situations in France and Russia, while describing the juridicial means and laws of protection of environment, or fight against pollution which take place in both countries. We will see international norms of protection of environment including France and Russia, which influence their environmental national politics. French and Russian firms which have strong economic relationships, particularly in the field of energy, are directly impacted by those environmental norms, and we propose to study the opportunities for french and russian firms to cooperate in the environmental field, to fight efficiently against pollution in their own country, and in the world.

The threat of proliferation of new types of crime - cybercrime - has increased nowadays. According to statistics, the French companies are most susceptible to virtual attacks that interferes with their normal functioning and enjoyment of activity. This article makes an attempt to analyze the causes, types and forms of cyber-crimes, some possible and most effective methods to combat virtual crime at the national and international levels.

The paper highlights the work of the Science-educational Session at the IV Moscow Legal Forum held by the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL).