Pohorilenko A. Economic and legal regulation of contractual relations in the field of electronic commerce.

The dissertation is the first systematic study of economic and legal regulation of contractual relations in the field of e-commerce in Ukraine, which provides a holistic review of the rules for concluding, executing, changing and terminating a commercial contract using telecommunications networks, the specifics of modern methods of authentication and data verification application in information networks. Moreover, in the paper author analyses the legality of using the newest tools of contract law (in particular, smart contracts) in the field of electronic commerce. The key concept of the study could be described as that the basic prerequisites for the safe conclusion of economic contract in the field of electronic commerce are the preliminary identification and authentication of the parties and ensuring the integrity of its content, which provides for the possibility of using both a simplified (non-documentary) and documentary methods of concluding. The author has improved a list of qualifying features of economic contract in the field of electronic commerce by clarifying the features already identified in scientific literature and supplementing it with features not yet identified, in terms of the fact that 1) execution, modification and termination of a business contract in the field of electronic commerce can take place without the use of telecommunication networks; 2) its conclusion must take place at least remotely, and at least one party must act for profit. As a result, for the first time in the scientific literature the doctrinal definition of an economic contract in the field of electronic commerce was developed. Author describes it as a binding legal relationship based on the agreement of the parties, established between economic entities or between economic entities and entities of organizational and economic authority or non-economic entities and recorded remotely using telecommunication networks, the content of which is the mutual rights and obligations of the parties in the field of economic relations, and the main purpose is a profit acquiring (at least for one party). Author notes that legal regulation in the field of electronic commerce should be based on the principle of technological neutrality, further demonstrates legislative examples of its limitation, which occurs in the field of electronic documents circulation, where the integrity and authenticity of electronic documents could be legally verified only through the verification of electronic signatures. Author has composited the mandatory requisites of electronic documents on which a economic contract is objectified, which include: 1) the name of the type of document ("Contract" (for economic contract in the form of a single electronic document) or the title of the text of the electronic document, which in short describes its content (for letters with an offer and acceptance)); 2) identification data of the parties to economic contract; 3) surname/first name/patronymic and positions of responsible persons (for legal entities); 4) date of the document; 5) registration index (number) of the document; 6) text; 7) signatures.