Corporate Rights Of The Spouses: The Essence Of The Legal Regime

The article is devoted to the question of legal regulation of corporate rights of spouses. The issues of the legal regime of marital property as well as the essence of the legal regime of spouses’ corporate rights have been discussed. It has been justified that upon investing marital property into the authorized share capital of a corporation which one of the spouses has ownership rights in, the rights of rem become the law of obligation (vinculum iuris). The law of obligation, incurred between spouses upon investing part of the shared property into company’s authorized share capital to participate in the authorized share capital, is based on the claim rights. It is noted that since the moment the company is registered with the State Registrar of Companies, such a company becomes a participant of civil law relations. The predetermined contribution (consisting of marital property) invested into the authorized share capital of a corporation becomes the property of the mentioned legal entity and is not subject to shared property of the spouses. Therefore, marital property as joint owned property becomes sole and separate property of the corporation. It has been proved that taking into account the indivisibility and the personalized nature of corporate rights, corporate rights cannot be subject to shared property of the spouses. This statement is supported by the fact that having the other spouse as a shareholder will lead to the increase in the number of shareholders. It has been explained that the legal regime of spouses’ corporate rights is subject to special legal regime, namely transformation of property rights. For that of the spouses who is a company shareholder, the right to property, which is being contributed to the authorized share capital of the corporation, becomes corporate right. For the other spouse, the mentioned above rights become claim rights.