To date, civil law suits between individuals and banks which arose from individuals claiming
damages caused by electronic financial fraud including voice phishing, have generally focused
on whether banks should be liable for indemnifying the losses of an individual user arising
from electronic fund transfers by an unauthorized person who has not been granted authority
from the user, and also on the meaning of the user’s intention or gross negligence as an
exemption requirement provided in Article 9 of the Electronic Financial Transaction Act. The
Supreme Court ruling no. 2013da 86489 rendered on January 29, 2014, shares the same points
with the disputes as well.
In practice, even prior to the cases of electronic fund transfers made by the
above-mentioned unauthorized person, there have been many cases where the unauthorized
person has signed the electronic loan agreements in the name of the user with financial
companies, which have resulted in disputes as to whether the electronic loan agreement is
valid or not, and whether it may be attributed to the user. However, there is no the Supreme
Court decision directly addressing this issue nor is there an established principle of law in this
regard, even though there are a couple of related cases from the lower courts.
In a case where a user wants to obtain a loan from a financial company by way of internet
banking, an authorized certificate functions as a means of access. Accordingly, the user must
have an authorized certificate issued from a financial institution such as a bank which is an
agency for issuing such authorized certificate prior to his or her taking out the loan mentioned above. Reviewing the detailed process for issuing authorized certificates in order, first of all,
the user should go through the face to face process for customer verification by the bank in
conjunction with submitting the application form for electronic financial transactions.
Subsequently, he or she downloads necessary programs from his or her computer, agrees all
the relevant standardized contracts on electronic financial transactions, and input all the items
in the program for the user’s verification through the information and communications network.
Finally, he or she will have an authorized certificate issued for banking transactions. Through
the authorized certificate thus issued, the user expresses its intent for loan subscription to the
financial company by digitally signing on the loan agreement with the authorized certificate,
after having passed through the user verification process with the authorized certificate in
accordance with the terms of the standardized contract for the loan agreement provided by
the financial company.
If there is a loan agreement between a financial company and a loan applicant, which was
signed by an unauthorized person having no relation with the applicant who impersonates the
applicant in an off-line transaction, the legal validity of the agreement is generally denied based
upon the legal principle of forgery although the issue of apparent authority beyond express
authority as provided in Article 126 of the Civil Act may still remain. In the area of electronic
financial transactions, however, there is no face to face verification process when the electronic
loan agreement is signed. Thus, the agreement is signed not in wet ink but by way of an
authorized certificate as means of access which has been issued through the face to face
verification prior to signing the loan agreement. Electronic documents used for electronic
financial transactions are within the purview of the Framework Act on Electronic Documents
and Transactions. Paragraphs 2 and 3, article 7 of the above mentioned Act regulate the issue
of effectiveness of electronic documents and attribution of expression of intent in such
documents which have been impersonated by a third party. Thus, the legal solution relating
to the legal validity of the electronic loan agreement signed by the user’s authorized certificate
which was (re)issued by an unauthorized person as well as the attribution of liability on debt
should be drawn from reasonable theory of analysis of the above mentioned provision. For
this, the consideration as to the characteristics of electronic financial transactions as non-face
to face transactions compared to the traditional face to face transactions, the function of
authorized certificate as means of access for electronic financial transactions, and the reason
why the relevant law requires face to face user verification process for issuance of authorized
certificate, is a prerequisite. Also, it is required to legally substantiate that user’s authorized certificate which was (re)issued by an unauthorized person is a forgery of means of access.
Nevertheless, the lower court rulings to date have been judging by rote that the electronic
loan agreement is valid if the user has consented to the standardized contract for electronic
financial transactions in advance based upon paragraph 2(1), article 7 of the Framework Act
on Electronic Documents and Transactions, whereas the loan agreement is not effective against
the user in general if there has been no such consent with the courts’ only reviewing the issue
of whether apparent authority beyond express authority exists as provided in Article 126 of
the Civil Act.
However, it is difficult to accept the stance of the lower court’s rulings above since such
rulings seem to be attributed to the lack of understanding as to the significance of paragraph
2, article 7 of the Framework Act on Electronic Documents and Transactions as a special
provision and the legislative background behind the provision. Even though there is no such
consent, the user as a debtor of the loan agreement which was executed by an unauthorized
person impersonating the user’s name shall be responsible for the loan extended from a
financial company based upon paragraph 2(2), article 7 of the Framework Act on Electronic
Documents and transactions, if the financial company has suitably implemented all the
customer verification process required for signing electronic loan agreements with the user in
compliance with relevant laws, regulations and financial regulator’s administrative guidelines.
This article aims to present a reasonable theory of analysis as to the legal validity of an
electronic loan agreement signed by way of forged authorized certificate along with the legal
interpretation of the relevant provision of the Framework Act on Electronic Documents and
Transactions.