국제거래에서 판매점계약(Distribution Agreement)의 판매자의 보상청구권에 관한 비교법적 고찰

The distribution agreement is broadly used in many areas of business. The nature of it is very similar to the agency agreement in that both agreements functionally have the same purpose of establishing vertical relationships between the parties to the agreements. However, while Section 92(2) of the Commercial Act grants the agency a right to compensation against the principal upon termination of the agency agreement, there is neither legislation nor case law with regard to the distributor’s right to compensation. Under the above circumstances, this article discusses whether the distributor’s right to compensation may be recognized. In order to discuss such an issue, this article first analyzes whether the distributor’s right to compensation is recognized in other countries, especially developed countries, inter alia, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and France including PEL CAFDC and the ICC Model Distributorship. Belgium has its own law regarding the distribution agreement;, however, other European countries do not have such laws. Instead some European countries recognize the distributor’s right to compensation in the case law by applying the agency laws to the distribution agreement by analogy. On the contrary, French courts have denied the distributor’s right to compensation. In this regard, the later part of this article is focused on the possibility of applying Section 92(2) of the Commercial Act to the distribution agreement by analogy.