經濟的 不法行爲와 損害賠償責任

Economic Torts and Damages

In these days economic torts arousing from unlawful interference over transactional relations are increasing due to growing transactions of products, etc. However, since the current article 750 of the Civil Code adopts only the general torts liability system, the question concerning which certain act of unlawful interference over transactional relations would constitute an act of torts remains somewhat unclear. Therefore, there is a need for the case law to embody the specific forms and requirements of economic torts stated in article 750 of the Civil Code. Yet, while there are generally known acts referred as ‘deceit’ or ‘passing off’, there certain acts that are still in its developing process such as ‘inducing a breach of contract,’ or ‘interference with trade or business by unlawful means.’ In this paper, the term ‘economic torts’ will refer to all kinds of torts resulting from unlawful interference over transactional relations, and its requirements in general would be the intention and unlawfulness of the act. Since damages caused by economic torts should be treated as damages from transactional relations, the amount of damages should refer to the differences between the conditions before outbreak of the act of breach and after the act of breach. In other words, it refers to the amount of compensation resulting from the breach of transactional relations. In this particular case, it would be sufficient to prove the amount of damages resulting from economic torts by proving the reasonable probability on the fact that the plaintiff would have gained lost profits if there were no act of breach.