Corporate Legal Relations in the Digital Age: Current Challenges and Trends in Legal Regulation

Purpose: This paper discusses the issues of “digitalization” of corporate law in the post-industrial era, in the context of intellectual modernization of the economy, business processes, as well as changes in approaches to corporate governance, accounting for corporate securities and transactions in financial markets. Design/methodology/approach: The authors consider the possibilities of further improvement of legislation on legal entities in terms of advantages and disadvantages of modern digital technologies for creating and transmitting data, in relation to the issues of legal regulation of general meetings of corporations, adoption, registration and certification of their decisions, updating the register of securities holders. Findings: If blockchain technologies are actively implemented in the global corporate practice and in the global stock market, Russia will have to adopt experience and technologies quickly enough to move in the right direction. Challenges that are highly likely to arise when implementing the strategy of digitalization of the Russian economy can become an incentive for taking active legislative decisions and increasing the pace of reforms. However, due to the rather expensive cost of blockchain technologies at the initial stage, they can only be available to players with large financial assets. Originality/value: The authors conclude that changes in the legislative regulation of a number of corporate procedures using digital technologies, including on the blockchain platform, are inevitable. The activity of their adoption will depend on global trends in the digitalization of corporate law.