Legality of conclusion of an employment contract from the point of view of the social insurance fund of the Russian Federation

The article deals with the problem of independent determination by the employee and the employer of the nature of the arisen legal relations without the agreement of the third parties that are not a party to this relationship. Can a third party that is not a party to this legal relationship, in particular, the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation, recognize such a decision of the parties as a fiction? A significant number of disputes today arise in connection with the decision of the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation to refuse to assign and pay maternity benefits to insured persons, explaining it by the formalization of labor relations in order to unreasonably receive these benefits at the expense of the Fund. The study of the stated problem made it possible to conclude that the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation may affect the fate of the contract concluded by the parties: to refuse to recognize it as an employment contract, to establish facts of fictitiousness and even economic expediency/ inexpediency of entering into labor relations between the parties, thereby questioning the legality of the employment contract concluded by the parties. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that only the court, but not the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation, can establish the nature of the legal relations arising, to re-classify them from civil law to employment (but not vice versa); only the parties to the contract may agree on the nature of the contract they conclude; the period of employment of an insured person - a pregnant woman from the date of the contract to the date of the insurance case should not be of crucial importance for the appointment and payment of maternity benefits.