Development of the Institute of Class Actions as a Tool for Protecting the Rights of Minority Shareholders in Foreign and Domestic Law: Historical and Legal Analysis

The article reveals the process of emergence and formation in foreign and domestic legislation of the institution of class actions in defense of the rights of minority shareholders, shows the historical experience of legal regulation of the activities of joint-stock companies. Using the example of the first joint-stock companies in European countries, the authors analyze the conditions for issuing, the operating rules and the procedure for distributing dividends, define the objective social and economic reasons for creating an effective legal mechanism that promotes the development of joint-stock activities, and reveal the main models of joint-stock law systems. The article assesses the development of the institution of class actions and shows the complexity of the legal regulation of joint-stock activities and the protection of the rights of minority shareholders in Russia since the 18th century. In particular, the lack of a unified legal regulation of the activities of joint-stock companies before the beginning of the 19th century, their number at the end of the century and total capital are pointed out. The authors revealed the complex and contradictory process of survival and termination of activities of joint-stock companies in the first decades of Soviet power, the beginning and main stages of the formation of corporatization at the final stage of the existence of the USSR and in the conditions of reforming joint-stock companies in modern Russia.