The notion of a foreign legal entity

This article is about the problem of the notion of a foreign legal entity. The article is topical because Russia is becoming more attractive for foreign capital and foreign economic entities. However before we start to investigate foreign company business activity in the Russian Federation as a whole, we must determine what kind of organization could be classified as foreign. In this connection the research purpose is to develop a single definition of a foreign legal entity, because there is no such definition in the current Russian civil legislation. The author analyzes both civil law and special law, which contain variety formulations of the term depending on the subject of legal regulation. This situation is incorrect, because modern civil legislation has to operate not only criterions to define the nationality and personal law of a legal entity, but also to fix a single definition of a foreign legal entity. In view of tendency of separation personal law of organization from its nationality, it is normal to use different but not discrepant definitions of a foreign company in private law and public law purposes. They could characterize the same phenomenon but on different sides. As a result the author formed his own definition of a foreign legal entity, which could be used in private law.