다단계판매에 있어 부담부과행위, 의무부과행위 및 사실상 금전거래행위의 판단기준 검토

Abstract

The Act on door-to-door sales, etc. have various provisions about multi-level marketing to restrain speculative transactions. The prohibitions of taking an excessive burden to salesperson, excessive money collection, and making a monetary transaction are typical regulations. But in practically, it's not easy to apply these regulations properly because the requirements of these provisions are not explicitly classified. According to the relative cases, the prohibition of taking an excessive burden is applied to the transactions of goods and services. On the other hand, the prohibition of taking excessive money collection is applied to collect money related to imposing obligations without transactions of goods and services. And about the status of salesperson which is a condition of the regulations, the Supreme Court seems to judge whether it is actually a salesperson who receives a substantial amount of sponsorship money. In application of the prohibition of making a monetary transaction, the Supreme Court allowed a standard of judgment of lower instance which presented the factors like objective value of the goods, purchase status, commodity price, refund policy, actual quality as a matter of consideration. Recently, the Supreme Court allowed a judgement of lower instance about receiving advance payments does not automatically constitute a monetary transaction. Given the attitude of current laws and precedents, it is necessary to come up with an appropriate regulation of receiving advance payments. In addition, the regulations about prohibiting excessive burden and excessive money collection need to be combined to one provision.