Lex mercatoria как источник международного частного права

The article is devoted to the problems of regulation of the enterprise relations complicated by a foreign element. The analysis of the lex mercatoria conception is presented from the point of view of possibility of reference of this law category to the sources for Russian private international law. Within the analysis various points of view on this matter in science and practice are investigated. It is noted that in the contemporary doctrine there is no common understanding of the lex mercatoria phenomenon essence. The author considers that lex mercatoria in the most general way can be defined as the law created by participants of the agreement, otherwise, it should be considered a system of the usage operating during the long period, that is a question of so-called “established procedure”. The author comes to conclusion that the usage cannot act as a law source and consequently lex mercatoria also will not be able to play the role of such source today. Thus the Russian courts following the traditions of national legal system at rendering the decisions on the cases complicated by a foreign element have to be influenced by existing rules of law instead of “established procedure”. Norms of lex mercatoria have to remain only contract terms within certain legal relations.