DEPENDENCE OF THE COMPANY'S LEGAL PERSONALITY FROM THE PERSONALITY OF ITS SHAREHOLDER AS A TREND OF LEGISLATION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT PRACTICE

Abstract

The concept of a legal entity as an independent legal entity, independent distinctiveness of its participants was formed gradually. In the Fatherland Law, it reached its climax in the Soviet era. It was then that such classical features of a legal entity were formulated as organizational unity, property isolation, and independent responsibility. The economic system drove this approach. In a planned socialist economy, an individual could not be the owner of the means of production, and therefore the legal personality of an enterprise was maximally alienated from a person's personality, which was reflected in its characteristics. For a long time, by inertia in Russian law and legislation, this alienation of the shareholder's personality from the legal entity's personality was preserved. The reason for the revision of this approach was the abuse by limited liability participants of legal entities controlled by them, using such a person as a "mask" for their activities and leading to a violation of creditors' interests. In this regard, with Russia's transition to market relations, an interest arose in the foreign theory of corporate law, which developed mechanisms to combat such abuses, studies of corporate forms of a legal entity, and mechanisms for bringing controllers and beneficial owners to justice were updated. The article examines the dynamics of the transformation of a legal entity's theory from dependence to independence and again to its dependence. It is argued that the shareholder's connection with the legal entity is preserved, and complete separation of the legal personality from the shareholder's personality is impossible, which is confirmed by the doctrine, law enforcement practice, and trends in the development of legislation on legal entities.