상조회사의 자본금 증가에 따른 법적 쟁점에대한 고찰- 소비자 보호절차를 중심으로 -

In order to protect the consumer rights and to prevent damages, the amendment of the Installment Transaction Act(“ITA”) on July 24, 2015 strengthened the registration requirements and disqualification grounds of the Mutual Aid Company. According to the ITA, the legal capital requirement of the Mutual Aid Company has been raised from 300 million won to over 1.5 billion won.(Article 19). The Mutual Aid Company must increase its legal capital to KRW 1.5 billion by January 25, 2019 and then register with the provincial governor. However, as of the end of January 2018, 142 of the total 162 Mutual Aid Company do not meet the capital requirement of 1.5 billion won. The way in which the Mutual Aid Company increases its capital may be through the issuance of new common stocks and the issuance of merged new shares in accordance with the merger. In this paper, we examine the way in which two or more Mutual Aid companies increase their capital by way of contribution in kind or merger, assuming that the Mutual Aid Company can not capitalize through the cash contribution method. In the case of contribution in kind, it is subject to the court’s review. It is highly likely that the court will strictly examine the contribution in kind in the state where the accounting standard for the Mutual Aid company is conservative. Therefore, it is highly likely that the Mutual Aid Company will adopt the capital increase method through merger. However, in case of a merger, there is a risk of inheriting the contingent liability of the acquired company. Which method to choose is a matter of business judgment. We hope that this paper will help he Mutual Aid Company increase capital without legal risk.