Foreign Participation Abridgement in Strategic Corporations

The thesis is dedicated to the problem of foreign participation abridgement in strategic corporations, i.e. any legal person whose shareholders (participants) are entitled to participate in it and to form its supreme body (art. 65.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) and which conducts business in economic sectors of public interest for the Russian Federation (national defense, state security, public healthcare, protection of rights and legitimate interests of Russian citizens, consistency of civil circulation, financial system’s stability, etc.). Various mechanisms of foreign participation abridgement, set in both general (Federal Law “On Procedures for Foreign Investment in the Business Entities of Strategic Importance for Russian National Defense and State Security”, hereinafter – 57-FZ) and special (e.g. Federal law “On Banks and Banking Activity”) legislations, are studied and compared in order to determine the way of resolving legal conflicts arising out of multiple and divergent legal acts governing the same or similar social relations, as well as to identify the reasons for the different approaches of the Russian legislator to the imposition of foreign participation in strategic corporate organizations depending on their activities. It is concluded that the 57-FZ is general in relation to different federal laws which contain special rules on foreign participation abridgement in legal entities operating in certain economic sectors not regulated by the 57-FZ. Therefore, the legal principle lex specialis derogat legi generali should be applied for the purposes of resolving aforementioned legal conflicts.