프로젝트 회사의 장래수입에 대한 프로젝트 금융대주단의 통제권 확보

As project finance is a non-recourse or limited recourse finance with the future revenue of the project company being the major source for repayment of the loan, lenders must have a strict control over such revenue. For that purpose, it has been an established practice in the international project finance market to create a pledge on the account receivables arising from the future commercial operation and on the project accounts. For creating a pledge on future assets, the Supreme Court of Korea requires a ʻprobability requirementʼ, determination whereof inevitably involves subjective judgments. This causes uncertainties over the effectiveness of the pledge on the future receivables and project accounts of the project company. It seems as if the enactment of ʻʻThe Act on Security over Movable Property, Claims, etc.ʼʼ in 2010 solved the problem by dropping the ʻprobability requirementʼ for creation of security over claims. In fact, due to certain other practical huddles involved in creating security over claims under this law, it is seldom used in the project finance transactions. So far, most of the domestic project finance transactions have been either SOC projects where minimum revenue guarantee were provided by the Korean government or the real estate development projects which in fact were not non-recourse finance at all because payment guarantees were provided by construction companies. Under these circumstances, lendersʼ attitude regarding the legal uncertainties related to the pledge over future assets have been quite generous. But the trend is changing now. The Korean government already began to reduce the frequencies of providing minimum revenue guarantee. The attitude of the constructions companies is also changing. This means that if we are to revigorate the project finance market in the future, we need to devise measures to secure an effective pledge over the future revenues and the project accounts of the project company.