주식에 관한 전자등록제도 시행에 즈음한 법적 문제점 검토 - 증권거래의 투명성 제고 측면을 중심으로 -

Abstract

2016. 3. 22. 「주식·사채 등의 전자등록에 관한 법률」제정으로 우리나라도 무권화 단계로 나아가기 위한 제도적 장치가 마련되었다. 이 글에서는 증권거래의 투명성 제고라는 측면에서 무권화가 가지는 장점이 전자등록법에서 어떻게 구현되고 있는지 살펴보았다. 전자등록법은 주식 뿐만 아니라 사채 기타 투자증권을 대상으로 하고 있지만 이 글에서는 주식만을 그 분석대상으로 한정하였다. 모든 회사의 모든 증권을 대상으로 하는 전면적인 무권화는 아니지만, 적어도 상장주식에 대하여는 모든 거래가 전자등록제도에 포섭되고 그에 관한 발행 및 유통정보도 전자등록시스템에 생성·집중될 수 있는 제도적 기반이 마련되었다는 점에서 전자등록법은 증권거래의 투명성 제고에 기여할 것이라고 생각한다. 만약 이러한 제도적 기반에서 한걸음 더 나아가 전자등록시스템에 생성·집중된 정보를 거의 실시간으로 취합하여 상시적으로 공유하는데까지 나아갔더라면 증권거래의 투명성 측면에서 무권화의 장점을 극대화할 수 있는 획기적인 계기가 되었을 것이다. 이번 입법이 이 단계에까지 나아가지 못한데에는 아쉬움이 남지만, 무권화 제도 도입 초기에 급격한 변화에 따르는 부담과 관련 당사자들의 수용성을 고려한 결과라고 이해하고 가까운 장래에 다음 단계로의 진전이 있기를 기대해본다. 이 글에서는 증권거래의 투명성 제고측면에서 긴요한 요소로서 정보공개와 소수주주권 행사의 용이성 두 가지 측면에 주목하여 전자등록법에 나타난 제도를 분석하였다. 전자등록주식의 발행인, 주주, 담보권자 등이 전자등록제도하에서 정보접근 측면에서 가지게 될 법적 지위가 가지는 한계를 검토하고 그에 대한 대안을 제시하는데 집중하였다. 또한 주로 주주명부 제도와의 관계에서 소수주주권 행사와 관련되어 제기되는 의문에 대하여 논의하고 필요한 제도정비 방안을 제시하였다.

On March 22, 2016, the Act on the Electronic Registration of Shares and Bonds, Etc. of Korea(the “Act”) has been legislated, which is to become effective within 4 years thereafter. The legislation of the Act is the first concrete step which Korea has taken to introduce the dematerialization of securities including stocks, bonds and other investment securities. Though the Act does not provides for the dematerialization of the securities in a full scale, first of all listed securities will be mandatorily dematerialized. In this article, the author focuses on the legal issues on the electronic registration system relating to the shares of stocks under the Act and evaluates the system in terms of its impact on the enhancement of the transparency on securities transactions. For her evaluation purposes, she pays attention to two factors: i)the quality of access to the informations on electronic securities transactions by the interested parties and ii)the level of difficulty for minority shareholders in exercising their rights against the issuers. In Part II, this article examines the electronic registration system for the disclosure of information on the electronic issuance of stocks and finds that it has significant limitations in terms of its coverage and it lacks sufficient mechanism enough to ensure the timeliness and the accuracy of the information at the stage of the electronic issuance of stocks. In Part III, the author analyzes the electronic registration system in terms of the production, concentration and dissemination of the informations originated from the electronic securities transactions in the secondary market. She finds that it has different facets for each of the interested parties including the issuers, shareholders and security holders. In terms of the production of such informations, the system provides for a perfectly comprehensive platform. However the concentration of such informations shall be made only through the initiative of the issuer of stocks and only in a very limited circumstances. The access to such concentrated electronic information by the issuer is also permitted only in such circumstances. The shareholders have no direct access to such concentrated electronic informations and have to rely on the shareholders registry system, the link of which with the concentrated electronic informations needs further regulatory refinements. Also the Act needs to be supplemented to provide more access to the electronic informations to the pledgees. In Part IV, the author goes through various problems that might arise when minority shareholders are to exercise their rights with respect to the electronically registered shares of stock, including the issues regarding the correlation with the shareholders registry system under the Commercial Code and the strict limitations on the disposition of the electronically registered shares of stock during certain peracid of time in connection with the exercise of their rights. In Part V, the author appreciates the achievements of the Act in that all transactions on the electronically registered stocks shall go through the electronic registration system which, as a result, provides for a comprehensive platform to produce and concentrate all informations on the electronic issuances and trading of those stocks. However, she concludes that the Acts needs more attention to go forward to the ultimate stage where the electronic registration system concentrates all such informations constantly almost in a real time base and provides for the full accesses to those informations for all interested parties including the issuers, shareholders and pledgees.