펀드 판매보수 규제의 평가 ―역사적 기원과 미국 제도를 중심으로―

초록

This paper investigates the economic nature of the fund sales fee regulation in Korea. Comparative legal and historical analysis is employed as methodology to serve the purpose of the paper. In particular, the US 12b-1 fee is taken as a benchmark case. Economic environment and related argument surrounding the introduction of the 12b-1 fee in 1980 are examined. Then, the historical process through which the Korean fund sales fee regulation came to existence is analyzed. Main findings of the paper are as follows. The US 12b-1 fee was introduced to provide economic assistance for the fund industry as the industry remained stagnant in the late 1970s. With the US stock market booming, the US fund industry has been registering record-high growth for the past two decades. As the regulation has outlived the purpose of the regulation, the 12b-1 fee regulation is now facing academic as well as public criticism. The Korean fund sales fee regulation was introduced in 2003 merely to accommodate an already existing-industry practice. The industry practice came to existence as a ‘historical accident’: it was owing to the fact that the Korean fund industry was introduced initially as a pseudo-bank.

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