Legal Regulation of Digital Financial Assets (Requirements) for Transfer of Securities

In modern Russia, digital investment technologies are actively developing and legitimized at the level of law enforcement, including for such an economic entity as a non-public joint-stock company. For example, Federal Law No. 259-FZ dated 07/31/2020 "On Digital Financial Assets" establishes several types of digital rights; one of them is the requirement to transfer equity securities. The owner of the specified type of digital financial assets has the right to demand the transfer to him of securities that were previously provided for in the Decision on the issue of these digital financial assets acquired by the owner. The Decision sets a deadline or event that determines the transfer of securities to him. The operator of the information system in which digital financial assets were issued provides access to the document on the issue of the relevant securities, as well as information on the pre-emptive right to purchase them, and the procedure for exercising such right. There is also a special feature that digital financial assets can certify the requirement to transfer not any equity securities. As such, only shares of a non-public joint-stock company and equity securities of the same company convertible into its shares are allowed. However, there is not a single non-public joint-stock company in Russia that has issued such digital financial assets. The lack of demand for the design was proved in the course of research, as well as by actual investment practice and the absence of at least one issue of digital financial assets of this type in the 4th year of the said Federal Law. The improvement of investment tools, in its particular case, the studied variety of digital financial assets, should, together with the deep modernization of the domestic financial market, enter into the anti–sanctions legislation emerging in the Russian Federation.