가맹사업 필수품목 제도개선 방안 연구

Abstract

Franchising is a business model where a franchisor allows a franchisee to use its own unique trademarks, trade names, and other commercial symbols and sell goods or services in compliance with certain quality standards and business methods, and receives a franchise fee in return. To ensure a unified brand image and quality consistency of products and services in franchise business operations, essential goods, services, real estate, facilities, and raw and auxiliary materials for franchise business management are designated as required purchases in franchise business transactions. However, in the designation and purchase of these required purchases, franchisors often over-designate required purchases and force franchisees to limit their transactions to specific counterparties, including the franchisor. This has led to significant conflicts between franchisors and franchisees, including unfair trade practices. In particular, required purchases are being used as a means of collecting differential franchise fees, which has become a source of conflict. The excessive designation of required purchases and the collection of differential franchise fees not only worsen the operating environment of franchisees, but also lead to frequent price increases, which ultimately burdens consumers. In the Korean franchise industry, unfair practices related to required purchases have been regulated as unfair trade practices, and policies and legislation to improve the required purchase system itself have been continuously promoted. However, the current Franchise Business Act only allows for the post-enforcement of unfair required purchase designation, and it is difficult to regulate behaviors such as unilateral changes and expansions of required purchases, and unreasonable price increases in ongoing trading relationships. In response to this consensus, the Franchise Business Act Amendment Bill, which includes the required purchase items and supply price calculation method as essential items to be included in the franchise contract, was passed by the National Assembly. The essence of franchise business is to pursue common prosperity through cooperation and collaboration between franchisers and franchisees, unlike a general business relationship. The discussion on required purchases should also be based on this premise, and a system should be established that allows franchisers and franchisees to negotiate and autonomously decide important matters of the franchise contract on an equal footing. This will help to solve the prerequisite problems for the advancement of the franchise fee collection structure, and will lead to a balanced development of both parties in a complementary manner.