선박소유자 등의 책임제한절차와 도산절차의 경합

The Debtor Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Act (here-after, ‘DRBA’) and The Act on the Procedure for Limiting the Liability of Ship-Owners (here-after, ‘APLLS’) contain explicit provisions regulating the relationship between bankruptcy procedures and procedures for the Ship-owner’s limitation of liability, but there are no separate regulations regarding the relationship between rehabilitation procedures and procedures for the Ship-owner’s limitation of liability. As a result, the relationship between rehabilitation procedures and procedures for the limitation of liability is entirely left to academic discussion and case laws. On the other hand, regarding the interrelationship between bankruptcy procedures and procedures for the limitation of liability, the core of the relevant laws is to prioritize bankruptcy procedures over liability limitation procedures, except in cases where the liability limitation procedure has been initiated prior to the bankruptcy declaration. According to the interpretation of the relevant laws, rehabilitation procedures can be conducted concurrently with liability limitation procedures. However, according to the APLLS, the amount deposited by the applicant or the deposit guarantor should be considered as having lost its status as the applicant's special property and has become the property of the deposit office. In particular, when a liability limitation fund is established by the liability insurer under a liability insurance contract, there is no competition between the limitation creditors and the bankruptcy creditors over the insufficient resources from the outset. Therefore, when the liability insurer pays the deposit, it should be interpreted that the creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings cannot demand a distribution from the deposit. Finally, procedures for the limitation of liability and the rehabilitation procedure can proceed concurrently, and even if the liability limitation procedure is initiated before the bankruptcy declaration, both procedures can still run concurrently. However, this does not mean that the two concurrent procedures will proceed in isolation from each other. Even if the two procedures can be conducted concurrently, due to the independence and unique characteristics of each procedure, there will inevitably be some degree of mutual influence.