Vol 17, No 5 (2021)

Today, the Russian Government declares the implementation of the strategy of scientific and technical modernization of the Russian industry. In this context, the basic role is played by the support of the high-tech sector of the Russian economy, which is still quite fragile, relatively weak and unstable. The key vector of the development of high technologies in Russia, in accordance with the system of national priorities, is the digitalization of many areas of the socio-economic life of the country, including industry. In the article, the authors propose to form a system of institutions that will be able to implement in practice a platform solution for simultaneous support of fundamental research in priority sectors of Russian industry, support of applied engineering developments of companies-leaders of technological development in Russia and small and medium-sized businesses, whose main task should be the commercialization and scaling of technological solutions.

The relevance of the article is due to the decline in oil consumption in the world, as well as changes in the demand structure for oil products. However, today oil is one of the main primary energy sources in the world. Currently, there is a tendency to increase the use of oil in the chemical industry as a raw material. This is considered more cost-effective and efficient than using pure hydrocarbons. The crisis related to the COVID-19 factor had a significant impact on the oil and oil products market. Consequently, this article is aimed at identifying the prospects for the development of the oil market. The leading approach to the study of this problem is the analysis of current indicators of the world oil market, which allows us to comprehensively consider current market trends and prospects for its development. The article presents the portion of energy resources in the world balance structure, the dynamics of the world oil production, the structure of the world oil production by regions of the world, the volume and structure of the world oil demand, and forecasts of oil prices. The article has a practical value for companies working in the oil and gas sector, for public and private investors. Forecast of average crude oil prices in 2021-2025, USD/bbl. Source: authors' assessment.

The purpose of this research study is to analyze the features of the development of Industry 4.0 in the context of the digitalization of the economy of the Russian Federation. Within the framework of this research, a number of tasks are being solved: assessing the problem of interaction between the digitalization of the economy and the concept of Industry 4.0; determination of directions for the development of Industry 4.0 in the new conditions of digitalization of the economy. The active development of the concept of Industry 4.0 will take place precisely in the conditions of effective and competent digitalization of the economy. Industry 4.0 and digitalization of the economy are two interrelated processes, the main one of which is the introduction of information and innovative tools. In many ways, the effectiveness of digitalization of the economy is built on the basis of the fundamental provisions of the Industry 4.0 concept, since it acts as a kind of information and technical base for the digitalization of the economy. The issue of interaction between the concept of Industry 4.0 and the digitalization of the economy is one of the most pressing topics among specialists in the field of applying digital technologies in the economy. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were formulated: the concept of Industry 4.0 and the digitalization of the economy are two interrelated processes that mutually influence each other. It is necessary to form a set of measures aimed at developing the Industry 4.0 concept: personnel policy, creating a system of economic and information protection, transforming the management system of modern enterprises, especially in terms of risk management.

The dynamics of subfederal budgets formation is considered on the example of the consolidated budget of the Krasnodar Territory in the context of tax revenues taking into account the revenue structure. The emphasis is placed on the legislative and geographical features of the subject of the Russian Federation, their corresponding tax obligations through the prism of the pandemic COVID-19 and the subsequent recovery of the economy. Based on these data, a conclusion is made about the general development of the region and the directions of increasing tax collection, personal income tax and income tax of organizations. The directions of increasing tax revenues are highlighted taking into account the development of control and analytical work and the formation of matrices for planning field tax inspections, as well as the expansion of the number of tax risk criteria. Research writing purposes: to determine the main tax revenues of the region and to identify areas for increasing collection, taking into account the control measures of tax authorities. The conclusions received during the research: the directions of tax revenue growth are evaluated and options for the development of tax policy for the region are proposed.

Authors examine information needs of financial reporting users and information requirements for management decision making in the context of development of conceptual framework on disclosures for SME financial reporting. The purpose of the study was to prepare concrete proposals to achieve transparency of small and medium-sized businesses, taking into account their heterogeneous composition, information requests from interested parties, including the state. In accordance with the purpose of the study, the following main tasks were set: analysis of the evolution of the accounting and analytical system of small and medium-sized businesses and scientific discussions regarding possible ways of its development, as well as the necessary and expected participation of these enterprises in solving economic, social and environmental problems facing the regions, our country and the world; identification of the most important features for the actual classification of a set of small and medium-sized businesses; development of recommendations regarding the formation of reporting information, taking into account the characteristics of each group of studied enterprises and the relevant requirements of stakeholders. The research model was a multi-stage progressive movement towards the goal with the involvement of achievements of related scientific fields. The expansion of scientific search was carried out through the use of research results of both Russian and foreign scientists in the field of statistics, economics, management, etc. The conclusions of the study included: justification of the need to use the concept of strategic transparency for the studied economic entities, and the application of an individual approach to a group of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the allocation within medium-sized enterprises of a subgroup of innovative enterprises and a subgroup of enterprises under transition to large business; recommendations for each proposed group (subgroup) on the composition of disclosures of reporting information, including non-financial. The practical significance lies in the possibility of using the recommendations made by small and medium-sized businesses to increase the transparency of their reporting information, as well as gain the trust of stakeholders, which generally contributes to the sustainable development of the Russian economy and the solution of global challenges facing society. The originality of the study consists in the disclosures of reporting information structured by groups of small and medium-sized enterprises; the article introduces the concept of strategic transparency. Conducted research offers ways to increase transparency of medium-sized businesses by non-financial disclosures on ESG factors.

Task. Transport is an important part of our country's economy. Transportation costs are fixed costs and need to be reflected in accounting, and later in the reporting of almost any organization. Whatever activity the budget organization carries out, transportation costs will exist in any case. The reflection of this type of expense in accounting, and subsequently in reporting, depends on the type of activity in which transport costs appeared and during which operations they arose. In practice, questions arise on which expense account to attribute transport costs, how to reflect this in the reporting. Model. The article analyzes the accounting of transport expenses in budget organizations and their reflection in the reporting, and also raises issues of insufficient reflection of information in the current legislation of the Russian Federation. Conclusions. Various options for the occurrence of transport costs in budget organizations were presented and disclosed. As you can see, all of them can be reflected in different ways when forming reports. There are no regulatory legal acts that would prescribe how to correctly reflect this type of expense in the reporting. Practical value. Whatever activity a budget organization carries out: the main one, which is financed by subsidies from the budget, investment, financed by attracting budget investments, or income-generating - transportation costs will exist in any case. The identified ways of reflecting transport costs in the reporting will allow the budget organization to compile reports more accurately and competently.

In the context of global changes in the world socio-economic system, development of global educational and research areas, modification of the industrial technological platform, development of smart and intelligent networks and environments, there was a great transformation of competition conditions in the world educational services’ markets. The improvement of the competitiveness of Russian education is one of the main strategic objectives of the state policy in the field of education. The one can see the transformation of ratings as a set of methods for assessing the performance of higher educational institutions becoming one of the instruments of influence on the management of universities. One of such methods became public funding mechanism. The following tasks are set and solved in the article: 1) processing of the initial data was carried out, including the graphic image, the elimination of «empty» lines, the addition of logical variables; 2) study of correlations between factors and the resulting indicator for all groups of ratings was carried out; 3) econometric models of the dependence of the total score on various factors were built, the models were verified; 4) clustering was carried out to highlight the relationship between the university and various indicators; 5) recommendations were developed to increase the competitiveness of Russian universities. Materials and methods. The article uses materials from the research work of the Government Task for 2021 on the topic: «Development of the international competitiveness of Russian universities in the context of global transformations and epidemiological threats». When modeling there was used data from the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education. There were also studied methods of system analysis, correlation analysis, econometric modeling, regression analysis, clustering, k-means. Results. Models were built and significant factors were selected for each of the variant of the QS rating. The analysis of the correlation dependence made it possible to exclude multicollinearity in the models. According to the simulation results, it turned out that the following indicators have the greatest influence on the overall score: «Academic Reputation»; «Faculty Student»; «Papers per faculty»; «International faculty»; «International students»; «Web Impact». As a result of the analysis of the T.H.E. rating, it turned out that having high indicators and being taught in many universities, physical and engineering sciences prevail and affect the final assessment.

The article is devoted to artificial intelligence technologies and its impact on the confidentiality of a person's personal rights, the secrecy of his personal life and his freedom of choice. The purpose of the article: this work aims to investigate the main approaches to the use of artificial intelligence technologies and the consequences of its integration into everyday life, both of an individual and of the whole society, and also raises the question whether the means used really justify the goals set. Methodology and methods: in this article, general scientific methods of analysis are used, especially empirical and dialectical, allowing a comprehensive consideration of the issues raised. The author also uses methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction in his work. Conclusions: as a result of the conducted research, the author comes to the conclusion that artificial intelligence technologies, designed initially to improve a person's life, jeopardize the fundamental constitutional bases designed to protect his personal rights and freedom. The author doubts the methods of using digital technologies given in the article, since humanity is currently actually sacrificing itself for the sake of the current system, whereas initially this system was created for good purposes. Scope of the results: this work may be of interest both to the developers of draft laws and to society as a whole, since it raises basic issues of protecting personal human rights and freedom of will in the context of global digitalization.

Introduction. The elections of the governors traditionally arouse significant interest among voters. As with other personalized votes, the winning candidate is required to provide absolute, not relative, support from the electorate. However, the practice that has developed over the past decade demonstrates the extremely rare use of repeated voting to determine the results of gubernatorial elections, and the few examples are rather an exception to the general rule. The above circumstances indicate the relevance of studying this aspect of the regional electoral process. Materials and methods. When preparing the article, federal and regional legislation, materials of election campaigns were analyzed. The main methods used are technical-legal, formal-legal, comparative-legal. Results. Repeated voting in elections of heads of governors is one of the mechanisms that ensure the full implementation of the will of voters, guaranteeing the election of the candidate with the greatest electoral support. However, some aspects of the legislation on gubernatorial elections, in particular, the limited number of subjects for nominating candidates and the procedure for supporting the nomination of candidates by elected officials of local self-government, entails a reduction in competition and, as a consequence, the determination of the results of voting in one round. A few episodes of re-voting, as a rule, were observed in regions that have either complicated relations with the federal center or an internal political conflict. Conclusions. Based on the results of the study, the expediency of liberalizing the requirements for the nomination and registration of candidates for the position of governor is substantiated.

The article explores the concept of big data in order to determine their place in the system of objects of civil rights, discusses the legality of the use of big data in the process of their processing by artificial intelligence, anonymized and pseudonymized data, as well as problems related to the need to obtain consent to the processing of the latter. The conclusion is made about the difficulty of applying some classical principles of data processing when using artificial intelligence. Conducting a comparative analysis of the big data system and the database, it is concluded that it is impossible to apply the legal regime of protection of the database as an object of related rights in relation to big data, if such data were the accidental result of the main activity of the organization. In order to recognize big data as an object of related rights, it is necessary that substantial investments be made precisely for the purpose of creating a big data database. This thesis is justified by the economic inexpediency of establishing a monopoly on individual databases of big data in order to prevent restrictions on competition and abuse of a dominant position in the market. It is proposed to apply such categories as reliability, completeness, comprehensiveness, consistency and independence to big data.

A feature of Finnish family law is the adoption of an independent act regulating issues related to the payment of child support - the Child Support Act No. 704/1975. A significant part of this legislative act is devoted to the regulation of issues arising in connection with the conclusion of an alimentary agreement for minors. The Child Support Act provides for the procedure for concluding, changing and terminating an alimentary agreement for minors, as well as its enforcement, the key criteria on which the determination of the amount of alimony obligations is based, as well as its annual indexation (in more detail, these issues are also settled in other regulations of Finland and recommendations of the Ministry of Justice of Finland), etc. This article details the key aspects related to the functioning of an alimentary agreement for minors in Finland.

This article examines some methodological and practical aspects of legal informing of military personnel and members of their families, civilian personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, military pensioners, which made it possible to draw a number of relevant conclusions and proposals for improving this area of activities of military administration bodies. The purpose of the work was to identify and substantiate general and specific principles, as well as the means, methods and forms of work based on them on the legal and organizational legal support of legal informing of these entities; in the analysis of the modern regulatory legal framework in this area of activity, the practice of working on legal informing of the above entities and the identification of possible reserves in this area; in determining the most acceptable methodological foundations for the conduct of work by military administration bodies and other federal executive bodies for the elimination of legal illiteracy and the formation of legal consciousness among servicemen, etc. through their legal informing.

This article presents some of the legal problems of state property that are relevant for the current stage of development of the Russian Federation. In particular, we are talking about the problems that exist today in the system of state property management, those, the rights of ownership, use and disposal of state property (violations of misuse of state property, illegal transfer of property rights, corruption, etc.). It is these powers that are included in the content of state property rights. In addition, the article touches upon such problematic aspects of state property rights as ineffective management of state property, as evidenced by the unsuccessful experience of privatization at the end of the twentieth century. The article concludes that privatization did not lead to positive results, and vice versa, exposed many other problems. Such problems include ineffective management of state property, corruption, questions about the relationship between private and state property, legal problems, and so on. Also in the article, the author concludes that many of the problems are caused by the lack of a unified definition of the term «state property right» and the fragmentation of the legal framework, which together leads to problems at the level of legislative regulation of the issue in question. Consequently, it can be assumed that the primary task in the direction of solving modern problems of imperfection of legal regulation of state property should be to modernize the legislative framework.

The recent outbreak of epidemic of a new coronavirus COVID-19 has divided without exaggeration the life of all the people on Earth into before and after the coronavirus. The medical coronavirus lockdown related to the non-spread of coronavirus infection has given the grave impact on the current economic relations and turned our traditional lifestyle at 180 degrees. These changes have affected, in varying degrees, all spheres of society and have caused the necessity for the urgent social and economic transformations and legislative consolidations of the new social relations, since it is the law that regulates these relations and it also provides the most important means of transformations in the economic, social and other spheres, it promotes settling and firmness of the social environment and, finally, taking into account its legal force, it determines the content of all other regulations. The article is examined the practical and theoretical questions of the social legislation changes against the coronavirus, as well as possible tendencies of its changes after the end of the coronavirus epidemic.

Criminal policy, as part of the social policy of the state, has its own general and special directions (updating of criminal legislation, international harmonization of criminal legislation, criminalization and decriminalization, penalization and de-criminalization, etc.). An independent direction of criminal policy can be attributed to the institutionalization of criminal law, the criteria and types of which are discussed in this article.

The purpose of the study is to obtain new scientific knowledge about the system of crimes that encroach on competition in the field of economic activity, the use of which will improve the effectiveness of their criminal-legal prevention. The subject of the analysis in the scientific article was the norms of criminal legislation providing for liability for smuggling, as well as for encroachments on the procurement of goods and services. The scientific article is aimed at identifying topical problems of systematization of crimes that infringe on competition in the field of economic activity. The study was carried out through a critical analysis of the criminal legislation that ensures the protection of economic competition, comparison and assessment of the points of view presented in the doctrine on the problems existing in this area of scientific knowledge. Results. According to the author, in the overwhelming number of scientific works devoted to the systematization of crimes that encroach on competition in the field of economic activity, the composition of smuggling, as well as crimes in the field of procurement of goods and services, are left without due attention. The smuggling of goods on the market puts economic participants in an unequal position, allowing the perpetrators to sharply reduce the costs associated with the payment of customs duties, which reduces their costs. This creates conditions for unfair price competition. Crimes in the procurement of goods and services lead to unjustified overpricing, ousting bona fide participants from the market. In turn, customers are deprived of the opportunity to purchase goods, works or services at the lowest possible cost. With these circumstances, the author argues for the need to include the acts provided for in Articles 200.1, 200.2, 200.4, 200.5, 200.6 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation into the circle of crimes that infringe on economic competition.

Problem statement. The institution of confiscation of property has a long history in Russian criminal law, dating back to the monuments of the law of Ancient Russia. At the same time, at the beginning of the XXI century, the legal nature of the confiscation of property underwent a significant change, not only in Russian, but also in foreign criminal legislation. In the Russian scientific literature, the legal nature of the institution of confiscation of property is traditionally studied from the point of view of its concept, features, goals, correlation with more general criminal law categories (responsibility, punishment). However, the works devoted to the analysis of the regularities of the development of this institute are not presented in our science. The purpose of our study is to identify these patterns. Conclusions. The conducted research made it possible to trace a number of historical and legal patterns in the development of the institute of confiscation in Russian criminal legislation, as well as to identify certain patterns of development and application of the institute of confiscation of property in foreign and international law.

The promotion of the negative list management model represents an innovative trend of the host state to further relax investment access as well as foreign investment control in order to promote transnational foreign direct investment flow. Since the relatively strict investment control system has existed for a long time, the negative list model is undoubtedly a major institutional and management innovation of opening-up. In the future, the negative list management model would be gradually adopted and promoted by contracting states with the conclusion of regional investment agreements, and become the representative achievement of high-level regional and even international investment rules. The involvement would also gradually transit from developed economies to developing economies. Negative list would become a necessary part in the formation and negotiation of international economic and trade rules in the future, and promotion of negative list will also become an important trend in the development of international investment rules.

The article discusses the issues of active transformation of the transport industry in Russia and the creation of a digital transport infrastructure. Issues related to the prospects for digitalization of transport and logistics services, transport security, and the use of intelligent transport systems are analyzed. The necessity of standardization of management of intelligent transport systems is substantiated. Shows the legal problems associated with the implementation and integration of an intelligent transport system. It is concluded that the creation of a domestic intelligent transport system, taking into account the spatial specifics of our country, is the most important direction in the development of the digital economy in the Russian Federation. Achieving high performance in the transport complex of the Russian Federation (the introduction of intelligent transport systems) is a complex, state social and economic task, the solution of which requires combining the efforts of the state, subjects of the Federation, the business community of all levels and sectors of the economy.

Research Objective. The article examines the prerequisites, prospects and problems of digitalization of the judicial process in Canada. It analyzes the electronic filing of documents, electronic evidence, electronic access to court documents and the regulations governing them. This is necessary to identify the main directions of development of the Canadian legal system in the development of digital technology. Among other things, the article answers the question - whether some aspects of the application of electronic justice do not contradict the fundamental constitutional principles and principles of civil procedure. Conclusions. The process of digitalization of justice seems inevitable. The introduction of information and communication technologies in the administration of justice offers great opportunities for increasing the efficiency of the judicial system. Digitalization of justice helps to increase transparency, efficiency and access to justice. The introduction of some elements of e-justice provides significant time and cost savings that will improve the efficiency and timeliness of the administration of justice in Canada. In the context of new information technology, many benefits are expected with respect to open access to court documents, but at the same time, unrestricted access to court documents also leads to possible violations of privacy and security rights.