The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to Busan High Court.

The grounds of appeal are examined.

1. Generally, who is a party to a contract is a matter of interpretation of the intent of the party involved in the contract.

In a case where there is a conflict of opinion on the interpretation of a juristic act between the parties concerned, the parties’ intention should be reasonably interpreted in accordance with logical and empirical rules by comprehensively taking into account the contents of the juristic act, the motive and background leading up to such juristic act, the purpose to be achieved by the juristic act,

(see, e.g., Supreme Court Decisions 2009Da92487, May 13, 2010; 2013Da69804, Oct. 29, 2015). According to the reasoning of the lower judgment, the Defendant is a person who engages in franchising franchise business using a business mark called “B” (hereinafter “Franchising Business Act”).

) As seen above, a franchisor constitutes “franchise” and C (hereinafter “C”) entered into a contract with the Defendant for the payment of fees for logistics and business management (hereinafter “instant logistics commission contract”) and supplied food materials, etc. to the Defendant’s franchise store; and the Plaintiff, as a seller of food materials, supplied food materials, etc. to the Defendant’s franchise store.

In this case, the Plaintiff entered into a food materials supply contract with the Defendant and sought payment for the unpaid food materials to the Defendant’s franchise store C, on the ground that it supplied the food materials to the Defendant’s franchise store.

The defendant asserts that C directly purchased food materials from the plaintiff and supplied them to the defendant's franchise store, and the parties who concluded the supply contract with the plaintiff are not the defendant but C.

Therefore, the issue of this case is whether the party who entered into a food materials supply contract with the Plaintiff is the Defendant C or not.

2.(a)

The lower court determined as follows on the grounds stated in its reasoning.

In other words, the plaintiff and the defendant are the defendant.