Russian Journal of Comparative Law

59-72

Authors: Hamed Alavi

Historically, litigation is the method of choice for resolving fraud related disputes in Documentary Letters of Credit (hereinafter - LC). However, it is difficult to meet the standard of proof and obtain injunction and stop bank from paying to fraudulent beneficiary. In late 1990’s Blodgett and Meyers proposed for the first time the possibility of referring LC fraud cases to arbitration for the purpose of resolving them by industry experts in shorter period and lower costs in comparison with litigation. Despite the fact that after almost twenty years from Blodgett and Meyer’s proposal, arbitration is not a popular method for resolving LC fraud disputes, it can be considered as an open option for resolving fraud disputes by parties to the letter of credit. Current paper, tries to find an answer to the question of why arbitration is not a popular method in resolving LC fraud cases by exploring existence of possibility to handle LC fraud disputes via arbitration and study legal concerns on the way of arbitrating such cases. On this basis, main research questions will be: (i) whether or not LC fraud cases can be referred to arbitration; (ii) What can be important aspects of arbitration agreement between parties in LC fraud disputes; (iii) What types of remedies are available in case of referring cases of LC Fraud to arbitration tribunal; (iv) Finally, paper will discuss the possibility to resolve LC fraud cases with reference to DOCDEX Rules.

95-101

Authors: Nicolay L. Shelukhin

The article is devoted to the legal status of personnel of private military companies participating in the internal (regional) armed conflict in the east of Ukraine as part of its military formations. The article grounds the necessity of introducing a clarified concept of "mercenary" and reworded concept of "foreign volunteers" in the regulations of international humanitarian law. This article has analyzed the world experience in the field of legislative regulation of activities by private military companies. Its non-legal nature in the structure of the foreign policy activities of different states has been defined. Tendencies of expanding the scope of private military companies activities have been studied. It includes the creation of hired military units, peacekeeping, participation in domestic armed conflicts, the suppression of armed uprisings, terrorism, etc. The necessity of forming national legislation regulating the activities of private military companies has been proved.

107-108

Authors: Alexei A. Moiseev

Russian legal, banking and finance and academic community can now benefit from a high-quality textbook "Currency Law" [1] for Bachelor’s and Master’s students edited by professor Pavel Biriukov, the founder of Voronezh scientific school of international law, the head of International and European Law Department of Voronezh State University, and associate professor Vladislav Ponomarenko, lecturer at Monetary Relations and Monetary Policy Department of Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.