주주총회의 활성화방안에 관한 연구

A Research on the Revitalization of the General Meeting of Shareholders

지금까지는 소액주주들이 시간 및 장소적 제약으로 인하여 주주총회의 투표에 참석률이 저조하였다. 전자투표제도의 실시를 의무화하여 보다 많은 소액주주들이 자신의 권리를 행사할 수 있는 기회를 제공하여야 한다. 주주들의 주주총회 참여율을 높이고 주주친화적인 경영문화를 이룩하기 위해서는 현장주주총회 위주의 관행에서 벗어나 전자주주총회가 활성화되도록 제도 개선이 이루어져야 한다. 먼저 순수버츄얼 전자주주총회의 도입에 있어서 수반되는 비용증가와 기술적 문제를 해결하여야 한다. 그리고 주주들이 자신들의 의사를 개진하지 않고 관람자로 전락하는 것을 막기 위해서는 단방향이 아닌 쌍방향 의사소통방식을 위한 시스템이 구축되어야 한다. 이를 위해서는 전문성을 갖춘 솔루션 기업의 육성을 위한 재정적 지원과 제도적 뒷받침이 이루어져야 한다. 섀도보팅제도의 폐지로 인하여 주주총회에 있어서 의결권확보가 어렵게 되었다. 우리나라는 의결권 확보를 용이하게 위하여 법개정을 통해 위임장권유를 전자적 방법으로 할 수 있도록 전자위임장제도를 도입하였지만 아직은 활용도가 높지 않다. 향후 주주총회의 정족수 미달로 인한 문제점을 해결하기 위해서는 전자위임장제도를 활성화시킬 필요가 있다. 이처럼 주주총회를 활성화시키기 위해서는 제도개선도 필요하지만 더불어 투자자들이 주주총회에 관심을 가지고 자신의 권리를 적극적으로 행사해야한다는 인식의 변화가 뒷받침되어야 한다.

For soundness in corporate governance, the general meeting of shareholders must properly function. If the general shareholders meeting becomes meaningless, the surveillance and supervision of the board of directors cannot be properly performed, and the company s management has no choice but to be not transparent. It has been pointed out that general shareholders meetings in South Korea are being operated inefficiently and in a perfunctory manner. We would like to suggest a method to address these issues as follows. While going through the 1997 currency crisis, the right to propose shareholder proposals was stipulated in the Commercial Act to improve corporate governance. The Commercial Act stipulates 3/100 of the total number of issued stocks having voting rights as a requirement for exercising the shareholder s proposal right. Since this requirement is difficult to meet in reality, it is needed to mitigate it to approximately 1/100 in consideration of foreign legislative examples. Additionally, shareholders must exercise their shareholder proposal right six weeks ahead of the date of the general meeting, and the notice of convening the general meeting of shareholders must be made two weeks prior to the date of the general meeting. It is necessary to amend the Commercial Act to adjust the notice and announcement period for the convening of the general meeting of shareholders and the timing of shareholder proposals, because it is difficult for ordinary minority shareholders to know realistically that the general shareholders meeting is held six weeks before. Until now, the attendance rate of minority shareholders in voting at the general shareholders meeting was low owing to time and venue restrictions. Implementing the electronic voting system should be made mandatory, providing opportunities for much more minority shareholders to exercise their rights. In order to increase the shareholder s participation rate in the general shareholders meeting and to achieve a shareholder-friendly management culture, the system should be improved for the electronic general meeting of shareholders to be activated, by getting out of the practices focused on the field general meeting of shareholders. First of all, the accompanying cost increase and technical problems with introducing a pure virtual electronic general meeting of shareholders should be resolved. And a system for interactive communication rather than one-way communication must be established in order to prevent shareholders from becoming spectators without stating their views. To this end, financial and institutional support for nurturing solution companies with expertise should be achieved. Due to abolishing the shadow voting system, it became difficult to secure voting rights at the general shareholders meeting. In the Republic of Korea, in order to facilitate to secure voting rights through amending the law, the electronic power of attorney system was introduced so that recommending the power of attorney could be electronically made, the degree of the utilization, however, is not still high. It is a must to activate the electronic power of attorney system in order to resolve the issues led by the insufficient quorum for the future general meeting of shareholders. Likewise, it must be supported by a change in the perception that investors should be interested in the general meeting of shareholders and actively exercise their rights as well as the institutional improvement which is required for activating the general meeting of shareholders.