개정상법상 유한책임회사의 법적 성질에 관한 연구

In the amended commercial law of 2011, it is introduced, as a new addition to the already existing four types of companies, a new type of legal company, based upon Limited Liability Company of United States. In the past, the Korean corporate law categorized two companies out of four as Personengesellschaft [a company category where members’ credit is more emphasized than the asset of the company itself which is similar to the United States’ General Partnership(GP)], and the other two companies as Kapitalgesellschaft [a company category where the company's credit is more emphasized than that of the members’], both of which were influenced by the German legal system. However, in the Anglo-American law, such concept did not exist, and thus efforts to include limited liability company into either Personengesellschaft or Kapitalgesellschaft was not only impossible but fruitless. One of the reasons that the amendment introduced limited liability company was due to the fact that a new and appropriate type of company was needed in the information based industry, which could not be easily absorbed in the existing company forms. Therefore, it is also necessary to consider these new hybrid company types in defining the legal characteristics of limited liability company. Moreover, it would be more desirable to take into account the characteristics of each provision of limited liability companies, rather than categorizing them into already existing company forms, and to independently search for directions to develop each provision.