A Local Custom as a Source of Legal Regulation of Entrepreneurial Rrelations

With the development of public relations in domestic jurisprudence views concerning the role and place of individual forms of law in the system of sources of law also change. The evolution of the forms of law shows replacement of some forms of law by different forms. In particular, legal customs became supplanted by laws and other normative legal acts. As a result the sources of law in question have acquired a subsidiary character. These tendencies many academic lawyers minimize to a natural process, seeing the elements of progress in this. Along with this, the author tries to draw attention to the fact that such fundamental sources of law as customs do not lose their value to this day. The article deals with legal customs of the local level. The author proposes their classification in accordance with their territory and the sphere of economic activity of a business entity. The author differentiates production and corporate customs of an organization. Production customs govern relations related to industrial and economic activities, including direct production and sale of products (goods, works and services). Corporate customs determine the issues of participation in corporate organizations or their management. It is proposed to determine the following signs of local customs: designed for repeated use; their scope is limited to the activities of a particular business entity; addressed to an unlimited range of entities associated with industrial and economic activities of an organization and corporate relations; are universal and formed by means of the behavior of the participants of relations, as well as adapted to a specific business entity; authorized and enforced by the State; shall comply with the provisions of the legislation. The article provides an overview of the opinions on this subject in pre-revolutionary Russia, Soviet jurisprudence, as well as opinions of modern scholars. When researching this specific form of law the author explains the balance between legal customs and business usage and course of performance. To conclude, the author differentiates the concepts in question. Thus, customs mean a form of law, and business usage and course of performance involve established rules of performing obligations (contractual or corporate) by parties to legal relationships. The analysis helps us build a complete picture of the sources of law governing business relations in Russia.

business law, source of law, form of law, source of business law, system of business law, legal custom, local custom, course of production, corporate customs, business usage, business practices, course of performance

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