D. Tyagai* ON THE ISSUE OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND LEGAL FORMS OF OFFSHORE COMPANIES: CIVIL LAW VIEW Abstract. <...> The paper examines the main legal forms of legal entities, the use of which is characteristic of the commercial activities in «offshore» zones and jurisdictions which enable the creation of preferential tax, financial, informational and legal conditions for entrepreneurs. <...> The article gives a critical assessment of utilitarian and applied approaches to the study of commercial structures involved in the «offshore» business organization schemes. <...> A particular emphasis is made on civil law nature of the legal form of a legal entity. <...> The author studies various classifications of «offshore» organizations from these positions, analyzes key legal models of collective entrepreneurship in common law countries and civil law countries of Europe, highlights the differences between the types of organizational and legal forms of legal entities and variants of «offshore» businesses of one form. <...> The interrelation between classical legal forms of commercial legal entities and similar legal structures applied in «offshore» activities are considered in the vein of civil law. <...> The author also compares them with the new models of entrepreneurship, functioning on the basis of the governing mechanisms of «private law». <...> An urge of the subjects of civil relations to minimize their own costs through commercial activities in the areas of the most favorable legal and tax regime has led to the emergence of a significant number of the so-called «offshore companies». <...> In this connection, there appears an objective need to research the legal nature of these organizations, as well as to classify such legal entities in order to determine their specific legal forms and models. <...> The classical approach to the analysis of «offshore companies» activities has a substantially ap1 V.V. Putin’s speech at the meeting of the Government Commission on development of electric energy at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station (the Republic of Khakasiya) Dec. 19, 2011 q.v. <...> D., 2014 * Tyagai Yekaterina Davidovna — Candidate of legal sciences (Master of Law), teacher, deputy head of department of civil law and family law, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, head of research and education centre «Institute of foreign and comparative law». [Ekaterina_tyagai@mail.ru] 123995, 9 Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, Moscow. ** The article is prepared within the framework of research «Legal regulation of off shores and trusts in International Private <...>