On March 12, in the third reading, the deputies of the Russian State Duma adopted the law “On Amendments to Parts One, Two and Four of the Civil Code”, which enshrines the concept of “digital rights” in the legislation (new article 141.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). This is the official website of the State Duma.

The law defines digital rights as “obligations and other rights, the content and conditions for the implementation of which are determined in accordance with the rules of an information system that complies with the criteria established by law; the exercise, disposal, including transfer, pledge, encumbrance of a digital right by other means or restriction of disposal thereof is possible only in the information system without recourse to a third party. ”

To facilitate digital rights transactions, the law equates to a simple written form of a transaction “expressing one's will by electronic or other similar technical means”. At the same time, the requirement to have a signature is considered fulfilled if any method is used to reliably determine the person who has expressed will (the rules do not apply to the drawing up of wills).

In addition, the law specifies that “at meetings at which a decision is taken by absentee voting, such voting may be carried out using electronic or other technical means”.

The law will come into force on October 1, 2019.

Managing partner of the law firm Effective Business Resources, co-founder of the BCL supplementary education program, in a comment to BlockchainJournal, expressed confidence that with the adoption of the law, business and ordinary citizens will receive guarantees of their rights, including the fundamental right to judicial protection.

“Of course, the existing draft of changes in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation has flaws that can lead to uncertainty regarding: the definition of the legal nature of cryptocurrency and mining, as well as some other aspects (inheritance of digital financial assets, etc.). However, it is worth noting that the Russian Federation did not follow the path of China and India, choosing a prohibitive approach to digital assets.

It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the legislator can still correct the situation with the definition of the legal nature of cryptocurrency and mining, if it makes changes to the draft Federal Law “On digital assets”. In the event that this happens, many of the potential risks to market participants will be removed, ”he said.

Recall, the amendments to the draft law “On Amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation” were approved by State Duma deputies on March 5 .

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