Russian E-commerce Market During COVID-19: Legal Regulation and Trends

Abstract

The subject of research in this paper is the peculiarities of legal regulation and development of the e-commerce market during the period of coronavirus infection COVID-19. The author examines in detail the concept of "e-commerce", which is understood as an economic sphere that combines trade and financial transactions that are carried out through contactless interaction of the parties. The article also analyzes the system of legal regulation of the e-commerce market, identifies trends for further improvement. Particular attention is paid to the impact of the pandemic on civil law turnover, as a result of which the e-commerce market has become the dominant way of commodity exchange in the Russian Federation. The study provides statistics on commodity exchange on online platforms for 2021-2022, which has grown significantly compared to previous years. The main conclusions of the authors are that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the processes of digitalization of all spheres of public life, as a result of which trade and financial transactions for the most part began to be carried out via the Internet, laid the foundation of the digital economy; to date, electronic commerce has become predominant, but is not devoid of shortcomings of legal regulation; trends of strengthening digital transformation are aimed at delineating the legal status and responsibility of participants in trade ("marketplace", "online store", etc.), expanding the list of types of digital assets and determining their legal regime (account, account, etc.).