Peculiarities of legal regulation of electronic trade documents circulation

Abstract

This article examines the peculiarities of legal egulation of electronic trade documents circulation in Ukraine and internationally (in particular, theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (hereinafter – the UK)). It is assessed to what extent the national legislation on the relevant issues is suitable for the transfer of such documents by electronic means, and the aspects in which it does not meet the requirements. The authors prove the insufficiency of the norms of the national legislation regulating the circulation of trade documents (bills of lading, bills of exchange, etc.) and the basic laws that define the basic organizational and legal principles of electronic document management and the use of electronic documents (the Law of Ukraine «On Electronic Documents and Electronic Document Circulation»), organizational and legal principles of activities in the field of electronic commerce in Ukraine (the Law of Ukraine «On Electronic Commerce»), legal and organizational principles of electronic trust services (the Law of Ukraine «On Electronic Trust Services») for transition to electronic document circulation of trade documents. With this in mind, and taking into account the obligation of the G7+ countries to promote the use and recognition of electronic transferable records (model laws of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), in particular in developing countries, and the experience of the United Kingdom, the development and adoption of a separate law «On Electronic Trade Documents» (taking into account the norms of existing national legislation and national interests), which would contain a clear concept of trade documents and their classification is substantiated.
 The feasibility of developing and recognizing uniform standards at the international level for the transfer of electronic trade documents (in particular, the introduction of new systems and their integration with internal systems by all carriers, customs authorities, etc.), which will ensure such transfer, as well as uniform terms for their implementation, is being determined. It is proved that distributed ledger technologies, in particular blockchain, have significant potential for ensuring the circulation of electronic trade documents.