LEGAL NATURE OF THE FACTORING AGREEMENT

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of issues related to determining the peculiarities of the legal nature of the factoring agreement. The complexity of its legal qualification is emphasized, which leads to ambiguity and inconsistency in judicial practice and civil law doctrine. The approaches of domestic and foreign scholars to defining the essence of the factoring agreement are analyzed, which in legal doctrine is characterized as a mixed, multi-component transaction combining elements of financing, assignment of a monetary claim, provision of services, and intermediation.It is emphasized that the economic and legal nature of factoring determines its uniqueness as a complex financial service aimed not only at financing the client but also at managing accounts receivable and insuring risks. The problem of the legal qualification of payment under a factoring agreement is highlighted. The positions of the Supreme Court regarding the correlation between the concepts of “payment” and “price of the monetary claim” are analyzed, on the basis of which a conclusion is drawn about the inadmissibility of equating the value of the assigned claim with the factor’s remuneration. It is emphasized that one of the key criteria for the legal qualification of a factoring agreement is the factor’s receipt of remuneration as payment for the provision of financial services, rather than the purchase of a claim at a discounted price. It is established that the payment referred to in the legislative definitions of the factoring agreement cannot be regarded as the price of the assigned claim: it is an additional element of the contractual structure intended to reflect the factor’s remuneration for the provision of a set of financial services rather than a monetary evaluation of the transferred claim. The issue of the possible fiduciary nature of the factoring agreement is analyzed; it is noted that the trust between the parties is manifested in the professional performance of duties but is not a qualifying feature for classifying the agreement as fiduciary in the traditional sense. It is generalized that the factoring agreement is bilateral, onerous, both real and consensual, causal, risky, and partially fiduciary. Its structure combines elements of various civil-law contracts while maintaining its own specificity as a financial instrument for managing monetary claims.