증권집단소송제도의 활성화방안에 관한 연구

More and more people are engaged in a single lawsuit, and that is one of the tendencies of legal disputes in modern society. The same is true in securities actions arisen from the stock market. Losses are enormous in that sort of action and too many people are suffering from various damages. Nonetheless, since the remedies available to an individual who has lost small amount in securities transaction are very limited, we have introduced the so-called securities class action as an efficient and alternative relief measure. The foreign exchange crisis has specially forced us to find an alternative other than civil lawsuits and that is why we passed the Act of Securities Class Action (hereinafter "Act") on January 1, 2005, after sharp debates in Parliament. However, the reality after the promulgation of the Act has not yet significantly changed. Class actions were rare, and many commentators came to announce that the Act's scheme has failed. The failure comes from the fact that, because the American studies recommended that it was paramount to reduce the number of actions, we have also tried to set too many requirements for an action to be heard in the court, and that was not basically what the market expected. So I think that it is really time to check out the practice and find out solutions to revitalize class action system. We do not need to talk about the abuse of actions nor to set up various preconditions for bring lawsuits in the court. Rather important is to successfully introduce class actions in stock market. It is also to enhance investors protection in the market and to develop stock exchange activities.