Digital Rights Act Enters into Force in Russia

The Law on Digital Rights entered into force on October 1 in Russia. It establishes the basic rules for regulating the circulation of digital rights and allows judicial protection of the rights of citizens and legal entities in the relations of the digital economy, as stated by the website of the State Duma.

It is noted that the new legal term reflects the essence of the token. In order to consolidate it, a new article 141.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation called “Digital Rights” was introduced. It is proposed to understand digital rights as the following:

“Obligatory and other rights, the contents and conditions for the implementation of which are determined in accordance with the rules of the information system that meets the criteria established by law. Implementation, disposal, including transfer, pledge, encumbrance of digital rights in other ways or limiting the disposal of digital rights is possible only in the information system without contacting a third party.”

Remote expression of will by electronic or other technical means (smartphones, computers) will be equated to a written form of the transaction. The scope of the “smart contracts” is also regulated within the framework of the Law: the compliance with the conditions for the automatic execution of contracts.

It should be noted that in Russia legislation on cryptocurrencies and digital assets is still not approved. Today it became known that analysts of the Ministry of Finance of Russia propose to split digital currencies into three types of assets, which should increase the effectiveness of regulation.