The Legal Nature of Deliverable Futures

The article studies the legal nature of deliverable futures. The author aims to define a deliverable futures by comparing its legal nature with the nature of the closest financial instrument to it — a deliverable forward. Futures differs from the forward contracts by the obligatory participation of the exchange as a mandatory facilitator in the conclusion and execution of the transaction. It is proposed to consider exchange transactions as a kind of aleatorial contracts, but contrary to bets they are subject to judicial protection under Russian law. The delivery futures is a complex contract, which combines the features of aleatoric transactions and purchase contracts. One the one hand it is related to the former by the presence of stochasticity. On the other hand it is related to the latter in that the underlying assets are sold for a fee.