• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.117-139
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• 2020

In case of international long-term transactions, there are various risks of economic change of circumstances including skyrocketing price increase and shortage of raw material, as well as force majeure in a general sense. Nevertheless, pretty many of international long-term commercial contracts do not include the provisions of renegotiation and adaptation of the contract. In this case, possibility of renegotiation and adaptation depends mainly on the applicable law. Namely, it may be possible or not, according to choice of law. The reason is that national laws have nuances each other, and most of national courts are traditionally reluctant to accept hardship. and also, provisions of international uniform law (CISG) has ambiguity and inflexibility in relation to the problems of change of circumstances. Accordingly, this paper analyzes comparatively the doctrines and provisions related to renegotiation and adaptation of contracts of the most representative countries such as England, U.S.A., France, Germany as well as provisions CISG and soft law such as PICC. By doing so, the author makes clear which laws of instruments is more flexible or acceptable in allowing renegotiation and adaptation of long-term commercial contracts, and emphasizes on the importance of inclusion of express terms by using other alternative supplementing clauses, as a best solution for settling the problems of legal uncertainty of contract in relation to renegotiation and adaptation.

• The Journal of Information Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.15-24
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• 1998

C.I.F. and F.O.B. contracts are the chief terms used in international trade contracts. But, in recently, the multimodal transport which is based on the containerization and the improvement of air transport has been grown gradually, Regardless of theese change in international trade environment, most of the contract of sale is made by C.I.F. and F.O.B. contracts which are based on the traditional port to port transport. In other words, there are some limitation in terms of legal base in which traditional C.I.F. and F.O.B. contract is applied to the changed environment. Especially, problems arised in marine insurance which export by F.O.B. trade terms. Therefore, when the parties of the contracts of sale make an sale contracts by using the container ship and Multimodal Transport, they should use the F.C.A. and C.I.P. contracts Instead of F.O.B. and C.I.F. contracts for the transport of goods. And parties of the contracts of sale need to gain a better understanding of the characteristic of F.C.A. and C.I.P. terms and the problem of the F.C.A. and C.I.P. contracts used in the performance on international multimodal transport.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.58
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• pp.313-328
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• 2013

Today FTA extends over the world and Korea as a main member of international trade is no exception. In the past Korea, as the developing countries, has made endlessly effort to induce foreign investment from foreign enterprise and/or government to be a truly OECD countries today and made it. Korea's trade economy was reached 1 trillion dollars in 2012. Now we have to find a new way to produce, process, procure goods from foreign investment and also need to protect our profit and/or rights within foreign judicial territory. There are two method to protect foreign enterprise or government. First they rely on general principles in WTO or Bilateral Investment Treaty that the principle of equality, national treatment, and most-favored-nation treatment, you can create a predictable environment to protect foreign enterprise and/or government. Second they need to incorporate contractual clauses in their agreement such as stabilization clause, force majeure, arbitration, governing law or sovereign immunity. Of course there are many things left behind to consider I hope it will be helpful to those who prepare foreign investment contract.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.62
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• pp.55-86
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• 2014

Korea has become a member of the United Nations Convention on Contract of the International Sales of Goods (the 'CISG') effective since March 1, 2005. As, therefore, the governing law of the general terms and conditions (the 'GTC') in the Government Foreign Procurement Contract (the 'Contract') is mandatorily fixed to the Korean Law, the CISG, as an International Convention, now having an equivalent or even higher status to the Korean Law, unless expressly excluded, will be priorly applied to the Contract where a transaction occurs between its members. In this regard, this study focuses on how to find the way for the CISG to be a governing law of the GTC in order to eliminate legal uncertainties and lacks of foreseeability prevailed in the international trade. For that purpose, the legal aspects of GTC, and the Buyer's remedy for the Seller's breach of the Contract are analyzed in accordance with the comparative study between the CISG and the GTC including the relevant case studies. As a result of this study, the application of the CISG into the GTC is highly recommended in order to reflect into the Contract such features as fairly harmonized for the interest of both parties. Taking this opportunity, a GTC, amended from the existing one, or newly formed, within the perimeter of not conflicting with the provisions of the CISG, including but not limited to the Civil Law and Commercial Law, is required in order to evenly share each party's responsibilities and obligations where the breach or remedy of the Contract is, and, thus, which will ultimately contribute to an efficient conduct of the Contract.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.77
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• pp.23-42
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• 2018

This study compares the SGA and CISG to find out the difference of the criteria for calculating damages. and it intends to give some important points in trade practice. The damages is intended to compensate the victim for the breach of contract but there are differences between SGA and CISG as follow. First, the SGA and CISG have the same purpose of claiming damages. Both laws and regulations are subject to a full indemnification to compensate for the breach of the contract by the amount equivalent to the loss suffered by the victim. Second, in the general principle related to the calculation of damages, both law enforcement officials are required to be able to predict damages caused by breach of contract. In the case of SGA, however, a foreseeability test or remoteness of damages is required for the relationship between the contract violation and the loss. In other words, it can be said that the causal relation between the contract violation and the damage is strictly applied rather than the CISG. Finally, both laws and regulations of SGA and CISG have a big difference in criteria for calculating damages. In the CISG, after the contract is canceled, it is classified according to the existence of the alternative transaction and the damage amount is calculated based on the contract price. On the other hand, the SGA estimates the loss based on the market price at the delivery of the goods, reflecting the change in the market price instead of the contract price of the goods.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.269-291
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• 1998

Change of circumstances subsequent to formation of international business contract raises two issues on both parties' obligation to perform business transaction concerned. One is impossibility of performance due to events beyond control of parties and the other is adaption of contract. In Anglo-American Law such an impossibility of performance is provided by the doctrine of Frustration and the doctrine of Practicability(UCC 2-615). In practice a "force majeure" clause should be included in contract defining the parties' mutual rights and duties if certain events beyond their control occur to safeguard themselves against possible impossibility. On the other hand the tendency of international trade is that alongside sales contracts, there are contract for supplies, for furnishing raw materials, for building industrial complexes, and transferring technology. One characteristic of these agreements is their duration. For in order to carry out these agreements, it is necessary to complete a series of closely interrelated operations which, in the normal course of events, take place over a number of years. It is often difficult for the parties, when finalizing their contract, to have a full grasp of all of the factors governing their relations. With a view to resolving difficulties such as compromise the continuous performance of a contract, parties may insert a regulatory clause in their contract providing for intervention by a third person after stating in specific and detailed fashion the circumstances in which their contract may be adapted.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.63-83
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• 2003

This paper's objective is to provide insights about the problems and expansion strategies of electronic trade. Korean small and medium-sized firms have adopted the Internet since the end of 1990s in order to reshape their competitiveness, and it is now being utilized as a major export marketing instrument to develop new customers, save export transaction costs ad facilitate new work processes. However, at present, the use of the internet in the field of trading is limited to the collection of market information, owing to legal, technical and institutional restraints between countries. In addition to that, because firms have the difficulties in making the trade contract through the e-trade system, the negative recognition on its' utility has been spreaded gradually between companies. This is one of the barriers to block the expansion of e-Trade between Korean firms. Therefore, this paper points out the problems of e-trade in the environmental, institutional and strategic view and provides many considerations for establishing the expansion strategy of e-trade by the Korean government and trade supporting institutions.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.139-162
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• 2005

The objective of this paper is to investigate important factors when one can consider an implementation of global e-trade. This paper in particular intends to derive which factors are significant at information strategic planning stage as well as its evaluation stage. Many works in the global e-trade area have been focusing on narrow research issues related to EDI implementation and trade process automation after trade contracts are legally made. Therefore, more complete and exclusive factors at pre-contract stage should be considered when one can make a strategic plan for global e-trade. Five factors are found to be important for global e-trade planning and those are: (1) corporate strategy, (2)trade process automation, (3)trade information technology & infrastructure, (4)organization & people, and (5)trade information technology utilization. An evaluation framework is developed in this paper and its empirical results are also provided.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.69
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• pp.127-151
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• 2016

UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts(PICC) was published in 1994. PICC has been functioned as a guideline of international commercial contracts, an applicable law to govern a contract by the agreement of the parties to a contract, general principles of law and lex mercatoria. In addition, PICC has a role of interpreting or supplementing international uniform law instruments as well as domestic laws, and also has served as a model for national and international legislations. PICC has been accepted as a authoritative source of knowledge of international trade usages of international commercial contracts to the arbitral tribunal rather than domestic court because it excluded the characteristics of hard law at the drafting stage. This article dealt with the rule on gross disparity of validity which fall outside the scope of UN Convention on Contract for the International Sale of Goods(CISG), which has obtained a leading legal position of uniform law in international sales of good. In other words, PICC suggests a series of meaningful solutions to the issue of gross disparity of contract which is the most complicated among legal disputes occurring during the process of conclusion of contact and also extremely different and diverse between legal systems. This article covered the issue of gross disparity of contract at the conclusion of contact and suggested the legal basis of several rules related to the gross disparity by analysing gross disparity rule of PICC. Furthermore, this article suggested legal check points or implication as well as interpretation and evaluation on doctrine of laesio enormis and undue influence or unconscionability. This article also dealt with a comparative analysis with Principles of European Contract Law(PECL) and Common European Sales Law(CESL) which have important legal positions in the area of international commercial contract as well as in terms of close relationship to PICC by linking with recent court or arbitral tribunal rulings.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.163-180
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which smart contracts can be applied to the software export business and to find out the legislative issues to activate smart contracts. A smart contract is a computer program that automatically executes a contract when conditions are fulfilled. Smart contracts can play a pivotal role in the field that requires immediate execution of contract or in a highly standardized field with multiple parties involved. In the software export business, it is desirable to apply the smart contract partially rather than applying the smart contract to the entire process because various parties are involved and the process is very complicated. The business model of exporting packaged software, a completed software that is mainly licensed for use, rather than the business model of exporting customized software is suitable for using smart contracts because the project for implementing customized software is mainly focused in the development stage. When smart contracts are used in processes such as contract signing, payment, and project management, work efficiency can be increased. In addition, smart contracts can be used when conditions can be quantified, such as error penalties, in areas that previously required contracts with third parties such as banks, guarantors. In order for smart contracts to be actively used in practice, legal reviews on various issues are necessary including the legality of a smart contract and the validity as an electronic document of NFT (non-fungible token) certificate. Also, for the system stability preventing hacking, etc, the periodic verification or inspection by a third party is essential. To activate smart contracts in international transactions the international treaty regarding smart contracts is also necessary.