미국의 회계(제도)개혁법상 증권변호사에대한 규제와 시사점

In Korea recently numerous concerns have been raised about unethical conduct by some corporate lawyers, especially those related to the issuance and/or distribution of securities. In other countries, already much debate has been conducted on whether or not such activities of lawyers should be regulated. Japan, for example, enacted a law aimed at preventing the abuse of power given to lawyers working for organizations in conducting their activities as of April 1st, 2005 (Code of Conduct for Lawyers, Article 50 and 51). In case of the United States, activities conducted by lawyers working for businesses were regulated to a certain extent ; however, these regulations were executed in a very narrow sense having effects only on cases involving illegal acts made by the lawyers themselves and not placing any responsibility on lawyers working for securities-issuing companies to be a gatekeeper for companies intending criminal acts. Consequently, issues were not raised with regard to those activities done by lawyers that had a close relationship with or were working for firms as their legal advisor concerning the handling and/or mishandling of securities. It was in the wake of the notorious Enron and Worldcom cases that the US government realized the need to strengthen regulations on the conduct of corporate lawyers and enacted the so-called Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which is also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act and which includes the requirements to be fulfilled by corporate lawyers handling securities with respect to their duty for financial reporting (Article 307). This study examines the legal system of the United States with regard to corporate lawyers dealing with securities, and it attempts to make suggestions with respect to ways to improve the current system in Korea by focusing on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and related rules established in accordance with the same law.