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영어

Initially, the Korean Commercial Act strictly separated organizations that execute business and those that supervise business, but when the United States’ corporate governance system was introduced, the board of directors was given both the executive and supervisory functions. Due to this overlap, there have been limits for the board of directors to independently and transparently conduct its supervisory duties. To fix this issue, the Korean government amended the Commercial Act in 2011 to introduce the executive officer system. That is, executive officers are delegated the authority to execute business to conduct day-to-day business of their company, which is in turn supervised by the board of directors. This effectively separated the supervision and execution of business in corporations. The following paragraphs summarize potential ways to enhance the current executive officer system under the Commercial Act. The current Commercial Act allows companies to autonomously decide whether to have an executive officer(Article 408-2(1)). Due to this provision, most large companies do not have an executive officer. In order to properly implement the executive officer system in Korea, the establishment of this position in companies must be made mandatory by law, rather than leaving the decision to individual companies. The Commercial Act enables the board of directors in each company to determine the compensation of its executive officer, unless there are related regulations in the articles of association or approval from the general meeting of shareholders. Because it is unrealistic to expect companies to regulate the compensation of their executive officers via articles of association or general meeting of shareholders, in practice, we must assume that the board of directors determines the compensation for its executive officer. In such cases, “Say On Pay” policy should be implemented to ensure that the shareholders’ opinions are reflected in determining the compensation for the executive officer. The Commercial Act does not require executive auditors to investigate executives officers and related reports. This, however, is a legislative gap. As such, the law should make it mandatory for auditors or the auditing committee to investigate and report whether documents filed by the executive officer violate the law or articles of association, or are significantly unfair. Because the executive officer has almost the same duties and responsibilities as directors in practice, exceptions—and the implementation of business judgement rule in particular—regarding must also be reviewed under the same context.

한국어

경영활동의 효율성과 의사결정의 신속성을 높이고 기업지배구조의 투명성을 제고하기 위하여 2011년에 집행임원제도가 입법화되면서 이사회에 속하였던 업무집행기능과 감독기능이 분리되어 업무집행기능은 집행임원이 수행하며 이사회는 감독기능을 수행하게 되었다. 현행 상법에서는 집행임원의 설치 여부는 회사가 자율적으로 정하도록 되어있다. 이러한 규정으로 인하여 대부분의 대회사들이 집행임원을 설치하지 않고 있다. 집행임원제도를 제대로 정착시키기 위해서는 집행임원의 설치를 회사의 자율에 맡길 것이 아니라 의무화시킬 필요가 있다. 상법은 집행임원의 보수 결정에 있어서 정관에 규정이 없거나 주주총회의 승인이 없는 경우 이사회에서 결정하도록 규정하고 있다. 기업실무에 있어서 집행임원의 보수를 정관에 규정하거나 주주총회의 안건으로 상정한다는 것은 현실적으로 기대하기 어려우므로 집행임원의 보수는 실질적으로 이사회가 결정한다고 보아야 한다. 이사회가 보수를 결정하는 경우에는 주주들의 의견이 반영되도록 주주승인제도를 도입할 필요가 있다. 상법에서는 집행임원에 대하여 감사의 조사․보고의무를 준용하지 않고 있는데 이는 입법의 미비이며 집행임원이 작성한 서류에 법령 또는 정관에 위반한 사항이 있는지 그리고 현저하게 부당한 사항이 있는지 여부를 감사 또는 감사위원회가 조사․보고하도록 의무규정을 두어야 한다. 현행 상법상 집행임원은 이사와 사실상 거의 같은 의무와 책임을 부담하기 때문에 이사에게 적용되는 면책, 특히 경영판단의 원칙의 적용도 같은 맥락에서 검토될 필요가 있다.