새로 도입된 법정손해배상에 관한 비판적 검토 - 개인정보보호 관련법에서의 법정손해배상을 중심으로 -

The Statutory Damages Claim was recently provided in two controversial laws, ‘Information Communications Network Act’ and ‘Credit Information Act’ after it had been first introduced as “pre-established damages” in the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. According to those laws, statutory damages can be claimed in lieu of real damages claim no later than three years after data subject may have knowledge about infringement fact. The maximum damages to be allowed should be no more than three million Korean won. This paper focuses on reasonable interpretation on the statutory damages provisions as well as suggestions to the legal reform on problematic issue if any. For such purpose, this also tries to analyze various provisions on statutory damages in Korea as well as US from the comparative perspective. To the conclusion, Korean statutory damages claim deems to be in the middle of American statutory damages and the previous Korean claim for considerable damages. Most important aspect of legal nature of the statutory damages claim is that it is not a punitive damages claim, but have ‘in lieu’ nature because it can be raised instead of real damages claim. For reinforcing its nature of protecting victim from personal data infringement, in-depth study is necessary to stipulate the minimum of statutory damages. Clarification is also necessary to transfer burden of proof and Statute of limitations for statutory damages claim should be simplified and unified in line with the Civil Act. A legislative effort should be taken to clarify application scope of time, selection between general claim and statutory claim, and time limit to exercise the claim.