Summary

A claim has proprietary value and serves as an object of legal usage (§336 (1) and §382 (1) 1) of the Civil Code of Russian Federation). This makes it tempting to recognise the creditor’s right to claim analogously to the right that the owner has to a thing. Unlike the creditor’s claim per se, which is aimed solely against the debtor, the creditor’s right to claim would be a real right that relates its holder to anyone and everyone; the assignment of the claim should in such a case be regarded as a transfer of claim, while the pledge of the claim should be regarded as an encumbrance of the claim. This way, the ownership of a thing and the ownership of a claim could be matched. The parallel, resulting from subjective contemplation, made it possible to talk about the ownership of a claim (Eigentum an der Forderung).

The article seeks to answer the question as to what extent such an approach is academically and practically justified.