The mechanism of regulatory sandboxes for introducing digital innovations: the practice of implementing experimental legal regimes at national and supranational levels

Abstract

Introduction. The legal mechanism of regulatory sandboxes is implemented in a number of countries to foster the development of the digital economy. Regulatory sandboxes act as a legal mechanism that allows introducing a special legal regime for new products and services and conducting experiments (with certain restrictions) with their practical usage without violating the national law. The national program “The Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” sets the goal of the development of digital innovations and the corresponding legal regulation. The implementation of transnational strategies of digital development for the EAEU, the CIS, BRICS is considered as a new challenge to the common economic development.Materials and methods. The research is based on the national and international legal acts as well as on national and international strategies of economic development. Among the methods used are comparison, generalization, qualitative and descriptive analysis and case-study method.Results. The study has identified the main forms of regulatory experiments that are implemented in the modern practice of public regulation. The paper proves that the various forms of regulatory experiments (including regulatory sandboxes) are an effective instrument of regulation of the digital innovations. The authors have found the main pass through technologies that are the object of experimental regulation in international practice. The paper sets the criteria for a successful implementation of the concept of supranational regulatory sandboxes that are implemented in several jurisdictions simultaneously.Discussion and conclusion. The study described the main patterns of implementation of regulatory sandboxes for digital innovations; the main characteristics of the regulatory sandboxes’ design were revealed; the general economic activities that can be enhanced by the instrument of regulatory sandboxes for digital innovations were defined.