Штраф за неисполнение условий договора о целевом обучении: некоторые вопросы правовой природы

The article is devoted to the issue of determining the legal nature of the sanction for failure by one of the parties to a contract on targeted training to fulfill the obligation to employ a citizen. Following a number of researchers, the author states the civilistic nature of the said contract, providing, in addition to the previously expressed, his own arguments in favor of this position. Considering the contract on targeted training as a civil law one, the author attempted to substantiate the interpretation of the fine provided for failure to fulfill the above obligation as damages, and not a penalty. The author analyzed judicial practice, which showed the incorrectness of the application by the courts in the case under consideration of the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on penalties and exclusively formal (without sufficient factual support) adherence to the guiding position of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation when reducing the amount of the penalty collected.