Transactions made under the influence of an essential misconception: novels of legal regulation

Transactions are the most essential component in the system of legal facts, since they generate private law relations between the actors who making a deal. Enactments regulating these legal relations have provisions covering not only valid, but also invalid transactions. The subject of this research is the Article 178 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation amended on 07.05.2013, referred to as “The invalidity of the transaction made under the influence of an essential misconception". The new amendment specifies the concept “invalidity of transaction", and expands considerably the list of reasons, due to which the misconception may be deemed as essential. According to this list the misleading is considered essential if: a party made an obvious lapsus linguae, lapsus calami, erratum, and so on; a party is mistaken in respect to: the transaction subject, in particular such its qualities, which are considered as essential; the transaction nature; the person with whom it closes a transaction, or a person associated with the transaction; the circumstance, which a party mentions in its will, or owing to the existence of which a party makes a deal obviously for the other party. A transaction may be invalidated on condition that the misconception already took place at the time of its closing. The amendments introduced in the studied article of the Civil Code, open up a wider range of opportunities to challenge the transactions made under the influence of delusion.