임원배상책임보험에 관한 판례 동향

Claims damages against directors are on the rise. So the necessity to take out a Directors’ and officers’(hereinafter ‘D&O’) liability insurance policy became bigger. Actually the number of taking out a D&O liability insurance policy increased compared to the past. Nonetheless, there are not many cases decisions of the Supreme Court related to D&O liability insurance. In addition there were few cases that the court ordered payment of insurance money. Although lots of decisions of the Supreme Court related to D&O liability insurance policy are not accumulated, in this paper, five (5) precedents concerning D&O liability insurance are classified as (i) breach of duty of disclosure, (ii) insured vs. insured exclusion clause, (iii) failure of directors’ liability for damages, (iv) duty to prevent loss, (v) duty to notify occurrence of perils and introduced in order of the date of the decisions of the Supreme Court. At the beginning of the introduction of D&O liability insurance, many insurance claim cases are related to interpretation of the exclusion clauses (the Supreme Court, Jul. 9, 2004; Decision 2003da15297, the Seoul High Court, Mar. 21, 2006; Decision 2005na64233). Meanwhile, in 2015, there was a case that the liability of the director's damages, which was a prerequisite for receiving insurance under the D&O liability insurance contract, was not established and payment of insurance money was refused (the Supreme Court Mar. 26, 2015; Decision 2013da210534, 2013da210541). In 2016, the Supreme Court judged the duty of policyholder and insured under the insurance contract act (commercial act) which had not become points of dispute with respect to the D&O liability insurance. Especially the Supreme Court Jan. 14, 2016: Decision 2015da6302 was meaningful. Because there was only conflict of the theory so far, but it declared the effect of breach of duty to prevent loss for the first time.