한국에 있어서 집행임원제도의 현황과 향후의 운용방향

Recently, the revised Commercial Law plan has been introduced in National Assembly (repealed automatically by term expiration, 2008). The korean law would have introduced Executive Officer System related to corporate governance. In a word, the purpose of this action is to enforce Board of Directors’ System (in particular, the Roles of Outside Directors and Audit Committee) in Corporation. These measures were introduced on securities law and commercial law in Korea (1999∼2002). However, the effect in korean corporation resulted in inappropriate parts. The Outside Director (Korean Securities and Exchange Law §191.16) introduced to improve corporate management is compulsory and restricted about the numbers. In this reason, each corporation scaled down the number and registered Directors did less and less in Board of Directors. So the business execution of Corporation has been charged of Executive Officers on the basis of the articles or regulation in corporation. The corporations have made use of Non-registered Executive Officers’ System not well-known in korean commercial law, many questions in corporation were exposed in forms of legal status, authority and liability etc. Therefore, we in Korea must introduce Executive Officers System, enforcing the Outside Officers’ independence & profession, and also supervision to board of directors in the future. I propose application of Executive Officers’ System in the followings. ① About the scope of introduction on Executive Officers, korean Commercial Law would regulate the criterion about definite corporations (besides, each corporation’s choice). ② Relating to the status of Executive Officers, generally we would regard them as Directors (revised Commercial Law Plan §408.2 ②). So, they hold Quasi-director’s Status because of there being authorities on decision-making and exercising it in business execution. Furthermore, ③ it is questioned on decision-making scope of Executive Officer’s Authority. Not making a decision uniformly, the law would regulate it according to each Corporate Circumstances. ④ Executive Officers exercise business execution and have decision-making authority mandated from board of director, so I think that necessarily Executive Officers charge with the Corporation and the Third-Party in the same place of the corporate directors.