전자문서의 개념과 법적 효력요건에 관한 고찰 - 대법원 2012. 3. 29. 선고 2009다45320 판결과 대법원 2015. 9. 10. 선고 2015두41401 판결을 중심으로 -

Korea has enacted the Framework Act on electronic Documents and Transactions in 1999 to contribute to the development of the national economy by clarifying the legal relevance of electronic documents and electronic transactions, ensuring the security and reliability of electronic documents and electronic transactions, and creating infrastructure for facilitating the use. Furthermore this law defines the term “electronic document” means information, prepared, transmitted, received, or stored in an electronic form by an information processing system(article 2 paragraph 1). And the validity of electronic documents is provided in article 4 para 1 “No electronic document shall be denied legal effect as a document solely because it is an electronic form, except as otherwise expressly provided for in other Acts. Nevertheless, there are some uncertainty on the meaning of these provisions. As a result, Two conflicting supreme court decisions that is 2009da45320 and 2015do41401 were verdicted on the legal effect of the electronic document which is provided in several two acts. So this study review those provisions of UNICIRAL Model Law on electronic document and several important countries’ legislations relating to the electronic documents. In conclusion this study suggest some clauses to revise the Framework Act on electronic Documents and Transactions to provide ‘writing’ requirement of electronic documents and “Original”requirement. If the Framework Act on electronic Documents and Transactions is revised according to the suggestion of this study, then the meaning of the Act will be clear regarding to electronic documents and the legal effects of these records.