「주식회사의 외부감사에 관한 법률」개정과 형사법적 논의

Abstract

Republic of Korea has carried out economic reforms since receiving bailout funds from the IMF in 1997. In particular, there have been significant changes in the legal field as companies such as Daewoo and Hanbo have gone bust immediately after the foreign-exchange crisis. As the problems of sloppy management, accounting fraud and low quality audit had surfaced, new legal systems were introduced to cope with them. Nonetheless, accounting irregularity is still not eradicated and Korea's international credit rating in the accounting sector is very low. In order to enhance the transparency of accounting, the "Act on External Audit of Stock Companies, etc” was announced on October 31, 2017. Usually discussions of external audit law have been mainly concerned with civil and commercial law. Although it is not common, the question of whether it is appropriate to punish low quality audit has been raised in terms of criminal law. However, as the legislation was fully revised in 2017, the system of penal regulations was improved, the level of sanctions was significantly strengthened, and the legal basis was provided for imposing up to life imprisonment depending on the amount changed in the financial statements. This paper first examines the major contents of the amendment law, and then inquires into the criminal legal issues and their improvement measures.