소비자단체소송의 도입과 전망

In Korean society, there has been criticisms against the means taken for consumer damages because the current measures such as civil law, civil procedure, and commerce law do not paly a proper role. Especially when those damages happened to a great many people but each damage is too small to be claimed, those people have difficulty in receiving the proper compensation due to lack of adequate lawsuit system. The introduction of Verbandsklage and class action has been argued for that reason. Regarding stocks the class action has been already introduced and the Verbandsklage is operated next year. The Verbandsklage is that a certain organization files a lawsuit for the sake of the public. That organization means a body which law stipulates that has the right to file a lawsuit as a legal representative. Therefore it isn't a sufferer. That organization that have been registered in the Fair Trade Commission for more than three years and have more than ten thousand regular members, can institute a lawsuit. However, the roles of those groups are confined in that they cannot file a lawsuit against compensations for consumer damages. They can only request that the court should stop the illegal actions of companies that caused the consumer damages. But actually among continuing infringements by companies few violences may be prevented. When the organization don't sue, consumers cannot bring a Verbandsklage for themselves. For the activation of the Verbandsklage, the efforts by consumer's groups are highly required.