Consumer Society As A Legal Form Of Non-For-Profit Legal Entity

The scientific article analyses the modem understanding of the term « consumer society « in Ukraine. The author gives reasons for feasibility to separate such independent legal entities’ forms as public associations and consumer societies within the group of non-business entities of the corporate type. The author explains that the membership in the non-business entity of corporate type may both generate (in consumer societies) and not generate (in public associations) the property relationships between a member of such a legal entity and the legal entity itself. There are criteria to distinguish non-business entities of public law and non­business entities of private law, namely: 1) the approach chosen by a legislator should constitute the basis 2) the additional criteria are: the category of interest, legal regime of property, the peculiarities of the founder’s liability for the obligations imposed on the established non-business entity. The consumer society is singled out into the independent legal form of the non­business entities according to the following peculiarities: 1) the property relationship between the consumer society’s participants and the consumer society itself; they are legal entities of the private law; 2) specifics of the society participants’ liability for obligations of the society; 3) private interest of the participants (founders) makes the basis of the society activity.