Understanding legal status of participants play an important role in increasing the efficiency of grant assistance. The article examines some problematic issues of determining legal status of participants. Among recipients of grant assistance in Ukraine separately paid attention to charity organizations. As most of the assistance comes from abroad, the article also include approaches of determining «nationality» of the participants (foreign individuals and legal entities and recipients of such assistance in Ukraine).
Thus, the presence of different approaches to determining nationality negatively affects the development of international economic relations, since it can lead to the emergence of the problem of «double nationality» of legal entity.
In addition to the existing approaches to determining the «nationality» of legal entities and individuals, the article analyzes the decision of the European Court of Justice, which contains special approaches to resolving this issue. As European Court of Justice established the main points in matters of interaction between European and national law of companies, in particular, assertion of the principle of freedom to create a legal entity, partial recognition of national norms about foreign companies, recognition of the doctrine of the real location of a legal entity and respect for local law with a reservation regarding compatibility with the Treaty establishing the European Union.
Particular attention is focused on the unification of approaches to the «grant» definition. The author analyzes various terms of the term grant and comes to the conclusion that to prevent excessive detailing of the grant definition, it is advisable to consider it precisely as targeted, non-refundable, urgent financial assistance.
Key words: grant, legal relations, grant aid, nationality, legal status.