이사책임경감조항 도입 기업의 특성

Motives of adopting Director’s Liability limitation Provision

본 연구는 개정된 상법에 따라서 정관에 도입이 가능해진 이사책임경감조항의 도입 유인을 분석하였다. 개정 상법은 주주에 대한 이사의 책임을 일정 금액 이내로 제한함으로써 유능한 이사를 쉽게 영입하고 이사의 진취적인 경영을 독려하기 위하여 제정되었다. 그러나 반대로 해당 조항이 경영진의 책임을 경감시킴으로써 주주와 경영진간의 대리인 비용을 증가시키고 경영진의 사적 이익을 위해 사용될 수 있다는 우려도 제시되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 이사책임경감조항을 도입한 기업 특성을 분석함으로써 이 문제를 실증적으로 검토하고자 하였다. 분석 결과, 성장잠재력이 낮고 주가변동성이 높은 기업일수록, 지배주주가 등기이사로 등재되어 있을수록, 지배주주의 지분율이 클수록, 사외이사 비중이 낮고 이사회 횟수가 많을수록 이사책임경감조항을 더 도입하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 이사책임경감조항이 미래 성장을 위한 적극적 투자 목적보다는 경영진의 책임회피목적으로 도입되고 있을 가능성을 시사하고 있다. 본 연구는 이사책임경감조항이 법 제정 의도와는 달리 기회주의적인 의도로 사용될 가능성을 제시함으로써 규제기관에 시사점을 제시하고 있다.

In 2012, The Korean Ministry of Justice revised the Commercial Law to support firms in rapidly changing business environment. As part of revision, director’s liability limitation provision(LLP, hereafter) is newly introduced which limit director’s personal liability up to 6 times(3 times for outside director) of his/her annual salary and accordingly protect directors from personal indemnification for business decision. The Korean Ministry of Justice announced that this provision is included for the firms to hire capable managers more easily and promote proactive investment activities. Consequently, more than half of firms listed in Korean Stock Exchange adopted the LLP. However, critics argue that the LLP, by reducing management’s responsibility, would enhance managerial entrenchment and deprive investors and creditors’ benefit. In some firms it actually happens that the proposals to adopt LLP is rejected by institutional investor or some minor/foreign investors. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to empirically study whether the purpose of adoption LLP is achieved. In this paper, we try to address this issue by investigating firm characteristics of adopting director’s liability limitation provision. We use the 889 samples listed in Korean Stock Exchange for the period of 2012 to 2013. The empirical results are summarized as follows. First, the firms with lower growth potential, measured by market to book ratio, and higher stock return volatility are more likely to adopt the LLP. This result suggest the possibility that the management try to adopt LLP to avoid potential shareholder lawsuit, when they expect low performance and high stock volatility. Second, the firm tend to adopt the LLP more when the controlling owner is member of board of director or have higher ownership. This suggests that when the controlling owner has high responsibility, he/she tends to try to adopt the LLP. Lastly, the firms with less outside director and more frequent board meeting adopt the LLP more, which suggest that the deteriorated governance and lots of issues to be discussed positively affect the decision to adopt the LLP. Overall, the results of our study imply that the management tends to adopt the LLP to avoid potential personal liability rather than to recruit capable managers or more proactively involve in investment for future growth as the regulatory board expected. Our study contributes to literature, regulatory board and investors. First, even though LLP can highly affect the management behaviour, few studies except Yum et al. (2014) investigate how the LLP is implemented. This study extend Yum et al. (2014) by rigorously studying the motives of LLP adoption. Second, we suggest policy implication by providing evidence that LLP may be utilized as management’s opportunistic purpose, rather than as the regulatory board expected. Third, the investors may adjust the investment decision or propose the opinion in shareholders’ general meeting by understanding the characteristics of firms adopting the LLP.