CONCERNING THE LEGAL NATURE OF THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of one of the ways of concluding the case in court – a settlement agreement. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined both by the development of the institution of alternative dispute resolution in Ukraine in particular, and by the crisis that has formed and deepened in the national judicial system. A settlement agreement can be concluded at any stage of court proceedings, namely in the court of first instance, in appeal, cassation, and in the process of executing a court decision. At the same time, in national law, the study of this institute takes place mostly within the limits of procedural law. Despite this, scientists also say that the peace agreement also has characteristics of substantive law. At the same time, they rely precisely on the form of agreement reached by the parties to the dispute. In the opinion of the author, the above limits the understanding of the settlement agreement and the possibility of its application in resolving the conflict. In the course of the research, the inexpediency of distinguishing the signs of a settlement agreement as an institution of substantive and procedural law separately was substantiated. The author highlights the following signs of a settlement agreement: it is a method of alternative dispute resolution; the resolution of the dispute in this way is possible either in legal proceedings or in bankruptcy cases; can be concluded at any stage of court proceedings; concluded in writing and approved by the court; the resolution approving the settlement agreement is an executive document; cannot be invalidated. Guided by the above-mentioned features, it is proposed to expand the concept of settlement agreement and the defined definitions in a broad and narrow sense. Thus, a settlement agreement in the narrow sense is an institution of procedural law, the norms of which establish the procedure for settling a dispute submitted by the parties to the court, by reaching an agreement on the subject of the dispute and concluding an agreement at any stage of the trial of the case, which is approved by the court. A settlement agreement in a broad sense is an alternative way of resolving a dispute by means agreed by the parties, the results of which are fixed in an agreement, the content and form of which are determined by the parties to the dispute. Expanding the understanding and ways of applying the settlement agreement in legal practice will allow the parties to the conflict to gain additional opportunities in resolving disputes.