주식 차명보유, 즉 명의대여자와 명의차용자간 협의에 따른 주식보유는 크게 간접대리, 명의신탁, 단순한 명의차용의 세 흐름으로 구분된다. 이 글에서 간접대리는 법적인 소유권이 대내외적으로 명의인에게 귀속되는 법률관계를 지칭하는 의미로 사용되었다. 명의신탁은 대외적, 대내적 귀속주체가 명의대여자와 명의차용자로 분화된다. 단순한 명의차용은 법적 소유권이 대내외적으로 명의차용자에 귀속된다.
이 글은 단순한 명의차용 개념이 무용하지 않음을 논증하였다. 이는 은닉행위로서 유효하다. 주식 명의신탁에 대해 선의취득을 논한 판례 사안도 실은 단순한 명의차용 사안인바, 명칭상의 혼란에도 불구하고 법원이 실제 사안 처리에 있어서 단순한 명의차용 개념을 활용하고 있음을 보여준다. 이와 관련하여 이 글은 법원이 주식 명의신탁이라는 용어를 적절하게 사용하고 있는지 의문도 제기하였다. 원래 상속세 및 증여세법 제45조의2는 그 적용범위가 매우 넓다. 이를 주식 차명보유에 관한 사법적 논의에 그대로 가져올 이유는 없다. 좀 더 세분하여 각각의 법률관계를 구분할 필요가 있다.
이 글은 나아가 전통적 의미의 명의신탁이라는 영역을 별도로 인정할 필요가 있는지 의문을 제기하였다. 이 영역은 대내외적 권리를 명의자에 귀속시키고 내부적 관계는 명의대여자와 명의차용자 사이에 채권적으로 규율하면 충분할 것으로 보인다. 전통적 명의신탁 개념은 소유명의를 매개로 경제적 주체와 법적 주체를 분리하는 현상을 지칭한다는 유용성을 가질 수는 있다. 그렇지만, 이를 굳이 소유권의 관계적 분열이라는 특이한 법리로 연결시킬 필요는 없는 것이다. 그렇다면 오히려 쟁점은 주식 차명보유의 여러 유형 중 단순한 명의차용의 범위를 획정하는 것이 될지도 모른다.A person may transact under the name of other person for various reasons: she might want to lessen tax burden, circumvent strict regulations or just prefer not to expose her for better negotiation. In order to regulate opaque or suspicious usage of other person’s name, the Korean legislations adopted two separate statutes on financial transactions or real estate transactions: under the Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Guarantee of Secrecy, financial transactions should be made under real name, with a handful of exceptions; also the Act on the Registration of Real Estate under Actual Titleholder’s Name urges buyers or sellers of real estates to register their own names.
When it comes to share transactions, however, the legislative sentiment is not so restrictive. Parties to such disguised deals may face heightened gift tax risk, but no direct ban was adopted by any statute. Hence a lot of shares owned under the name of other person in Korea. The goal of this paper is to explore the legal implications surrounding the shares whose nominal owners and beneficial owners are separated.
Having analyzed around 70 Korean Supreme Court cases since 2014, the paper classifies share transactions under other person’s name into three groups. First, the creation of fake appearance through the registration on the shareholders list (Type 1). In Type 1, it is the beneficial owner to whom the shares legally belong. If the person whose name is appeared on the shareholders list sell the shares to 3rd party with bad faith, such sale and purchase shall be nullified. The only caveat is that the beneficial owner cannot exercise her shareholder rights toward the company till the shareholders list is revised (Art. 337 of the Korean Commercial Code).
Second, acquisition of full legal entitlement by the shareholders on the list while leaving beneficial owner some economic interest (Type 2). In Type 2, the shares belong to the shareholders on the list and no legal rights are reserved to the person behind the scene. The latter may ask the former to keep the agreement which created the Type 2 and to follow her direction in exercising shareholders’ rights, but such asking has the effect in personam. The exercise of rights by shareholders on the ledger, ignoring such asking, would be still valid. Third, the separation of legal ownership (Type 3). It is not like a separation of ownership in title from ownership in equity under the Anglo-American trust law, but a jurisprudence unique to Korea. The shareholder on the list has legal ownership vis-à-vis third party or the company; the beneficial owner has legal ownership vis-à-vis the shareholder on the list. Traditional Korean jurisprudences have called this phenomenon “Myong-Ui-Sin-Tak” or Korean style trust of title name. As opposed to Type 1, a third party, whether with bad faith or good faith, may legally acquire full and valid ownership through a sale and purchase agreement with a shareholder on list under Type 3, even though the deal is against beneficial owner’s will.
The findings from this research may be summarized as follows:
(1) The legal implication of Type 3 should be revisited. The status of beneficial owner in Type 3 is very similar to that in Type 2: an ownership exercisable against only the shareholder on the list (Type 3) implies that the ownership has the effect in personam (Type 2). We may merge Type 3 concept into Type 2.
(2) The Korean Supreme Court often failed to use exact terminology on cases containing separation of legal ownership. Under the Korean tax statutes, all of the three Types shall trigger strict gift tax. However, these broad applications should not be extended to non-tax cases and the difference of each Type, especially that of Type 1 and Type 2, should be clearly recognized.