International countertrade arrangements and their legal structure: Double edge sword or future of the modern trade

The experiences and the practice of many countries show that countertrade could be used as the significant method for incensement of the export as well as for the promotion of the foreign investments even in the period of deep financial crises. Contemporary governments' pro-active countertrade orientation in USA, Israel, Sweden, Norway, Japan and other developed countries highlights the inadequacy of the obsolete and stereotypical concept of the countertrade as the compensation transaction based on the 'trade without money' concept. Besides this, the practices proved that countertrade transactions are the consequence and the indicator of economic shocks. Therefore, the study of the special legal issues that may arise in countertrade transactions will be very important not only for the domestic legal doctrine but also for the commercial practice. As national laws do not contain provisions specific for countertrade, it is of particular importance to analyze legal question such as structuring and drafting of countertrade arrangements as well as to study the question of the legal nature of the contractual link between legal instruments which form multicontractual mechanism of countertrade transactions. The character of the legal connection among the legal instruments in countertrade arrangement, as well as the legal nature of the countertrade commitment, strongly influence the countertrade agreement's legal nature. The economic reality of a group of contracts joined by the common goal of the transaction (consideration) and the countertrade commitment has to be followed by the legal reality which will recognize the legal interdependence of the obligation deriving from the legally independent countertrade arrangement.