Economic Code of Ukraine

Of all the codes adopted by member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States since the commencement of the transition to a market economy, the Economic Code of Ukraine is the most unusual and the most innovative in its own way.

Indeed it is a legislative achievement that defeated even the Soviet authorities. The family of socialist legal systems was (and is, where survivals thereof still operate) perhaps unique in modern civilization for its endeavour to devise de novo a system of legal regulation that would combine the vertical relations of administrative-economic and planning law between the state and the subjects of economic law, on one hand and the horizontal civil law relations formed between more or less legally equal participants of economic turnover.

In Ukraine the legal vestiges of a socialist planned economy have been partially, but not completely repealed or replaced.

The entry into force, on 1st January 2004, of the Economic Code of Ukraine simultaneously with the 2003 Civil Code of Ukraine are benchmarks in the transition towards some species of market system.

The decision of Ukraine to enact both the ‘Economic Code’ and the ‘Civil Code’ will inevitably be greeted by foreign investors as in some measure the continuation and perpetuation of a legal doctrine that places considerable weight upon a major role for the State in economic relations, even within the context of market economic relations.

Perception notwithstanding, however, a command of the Economic code is absolutely essential for any investor in Ukraine.