On 17 September 2020, the regular evening expert discussion arranged by the Russian School for Private Law Alumni Association (Private Thursday) was held. The workshop was dedicated to finding an adequate theory for the new legal institution – the community property of spouses. Olesya Petrol, partner at Petrol Chilikov was among its speakers.

The following matters were discussed:

• What is community property of spouses: a special institution of common right holding, an institution for mandatory equalisation of the results of spouses’ economic management, or a mechanism for creation of a new right holder?
• How do the concepts of ‘joint property’ and ‘joint debts’ correlate?
• What is the difference between the term ‘interest’ as applied in the context of shared ownership and joint property?
• How do spouses’ interests and interests of civil turnover correlate – taking the adherence to the procedure for disposal of joint assets and repayment of joint debts of spouses as an example? Do any of them have priority?
• Which property legal relations are being established within the spouses’ consortium (family) during the marriage? May spouses make deals with each other with respect to their joint property? Does any of the spouses have remedies to protect himself/herself from damage caused by the other spouse to their joint assets (be alienating, destroying, expending them, etc.).

The details and video record of the event are available at link.