법정이율 변동제에 관한 민법 개정 제안

Article 379 of the Korean Civil Code (hereinafter “KCC”) stipulates that the annual statutory interest rate is 5% unless other legal provisions or the parties’ agreement state otherwise. The statutory interest rate applies to quite many situations: determining the amount of damages upon default on a monetary debt (Article 397), the interest that has to be added to the price of sales when the sales contract has been terminated (Article 548), and the interest that has to be restituted in unfair enrichment cases (Section 2 of Article 748), and calculating the present value of future loss. As such, the statutory interest rate affects a large number of parties. The current statutory interest rate has been criticized on the ground that 5% is much too high a rate compared to the current market interest rate. Other countries’ legislations which allow the statutory interest rate to vary in accordance with the market interest rate also stimulated the discussion on the amendment. This paper aims to closely analyze the past attempts on the amendment of Article 379 in Korea and other countries’ legislations on variable statutory interest rate, and to propose an amendment on Article 379 of the KCC. A new provision on calculating value of future loss is also proposed at the end of discussion.