Foreign Trade Association

(full name, Ail-Union Foreign Trade Association), economic organizations in the USSR created for the implementation of trade operations with foreign business agents.

The majority of foreign trade associations (in 1970, approximately 40) are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR. Several foreign trade associations that carry out complete deliveries of equipment and materials for enterprises and other units under construction on the territory of foreign countries and that carry out related contract work are a part of the system of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Foreign Economic Ties. A few foreign trade associations are under the jurisdiction of other bodies of administration. Besides the state organizations, there is also a cooperative foreign trade association—Soiuzkoopvneshtorg, which belongs to the system of the Central Union Cooperative Alliance of the USSR (Centrosoyus) and carries on foreign trade operations with firms and cooperative organizations of foreign countries.

A foreign trade association has the rights of a juridical person; its legal position is chiefly determined by its charter, which is confirmed by the organization to which it is subordi-nate. As a special standardized act, determining the legal rights and functioning rights of a foreign trade association, the charter has extraterritorial significance (that is, it is also recognized outside the USSR). An association possesses in-dependent properties and may in its own name acquire property and private nonproperty rights, carry obligations, and be a plaintiff or defendent in a trial or arbitration. The civil legal rights of an association are determined in conjunction with the goals of its activities. Each association is granted the right to perform transactions and other juridical actions abroad as well as in the USSR, on condition that these actions are connected with the range of operations provided for in the charter of the given association. The majority of associations specialize in the trade of specific goods and services; each is granted, as a rule, monopoly rights in its operations. This monopoly specialization allows effective implementation of foreign trade operations and also prevents competition between individual associations on the foreign market.

The foreign trade association representatives who can act as juridical persons are the chairman of the association and his assistants. The procedure for signing foreign trade agreements and the form of these agreements are determined by legislation of the USSR, regardless of where the agreements are concluded. The special procedure for signing foreign trade agreements concluded by foreign trade associations was established by the Civil Legislation of the USSR and Union Republics of 1961 (art. 125) and the decree of the Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars) of Dec. 26, 1935 (Collection of Laws of the USSR, 1936, no. 1, sec. 1, art. 3).

A foreign trade association is responsible for its own obligations to the extent of all property assigned to it; under the law, a penalty may be assessed on this property. The government is not responsible for the obligations of an association, and the association in turn is not responsible for the government’s. A foreign trade association carries out its economic activities on the foreign market in close contact with other Soviet organizations—those delivering goods for export and those ordering import goods. The association receives by order from these organizations the goods designated for export, which are delivered in the fulfillment of the state plans of delivery of goods for export. The import of goods is carried out also on the basis of state plans; in fulfilling projected quotas, an association establishes a com-mission relationship with the orderers of import goods.

In 1967, councils on export problems were created under export and export-import foreign trade associations to ensure even closer business contact between foreign trade associations and the corresponding administrations, enterprises, and organizations carrying out delivery of goods for export and technical services on machines, equipment, and instruments sold abroad.