대법원 판례에 나타난 금융투자상품 거래에서의 적합성 원칙

The suitability principle is a principle that when a financial companyrecommends investments in financial products to customers, they cannot recommendinvestments that are not suitable to the customer considering thecustomer’s investment experience, investment purpose and assets. This is aprecondition for applying the principles of self-responsibility for financialproduct investments and it is different from the duty of explanation and dutyto prohibit unjust recommendations. This paper examines the meaning and contents of the suitability principle,legal characteristics, the ‘know-your-customer’ rule and duty for financialproduct examination as a precondition, standards for judging the violation ofthe suitability principle, judging the illegal behavior due to violation of thesuitability principle and the scope of damages, and the suitability principleviolation and the fault set-off focusing on supreme court cases. In particular,in relation to the KIKO lawsuit caused by the global financial crisis in thelate 2000s, it discusses the contents of the four unanimous judgments onthe violation of suitability principles by signing the KIKO currency optioncontract. The Supreme Court judging stated that when dealing with financial investments,they have the obligation of protecting customers. The suitabilityprinciple is included in such obligation to protect customers, and it ruledthat when violating this, they can be held liable for illegal behavior. And when it is judged to be illegal due to violation of the suitability principle, they presented the criteria that it must be a case in which transactions with excessive risks for the customer’s investment situation were assertively recommended to them. The unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court for the KIKO currency option contract presents a concrete standard that says that when a bank signs a currency option contract with export companies with the goal of exchange hedge, violation of suitability principle can be interpreted as illegal behavior. However, as the concept of the suitability principle is abstract, it is difficult to clearly judge what cases would be illegal behavior as a violation of the suitability principle by the Supreme Court ruling alone. Thus, the question on whether recommendations for financial investment products by financial institutes can be judged as illegal behavior by violating the suitability principle can only be concretized through the amassing of judgments that take into detailed accounts of individual cases.