In protecting the tenant of commercial building and improving its trading position in the transaction with the landlord, it is key to guarantee the continuation of lease at least for period required to recover the return on investment and realize business rights and profits. However, the stronger the effect of the right to lease to protect the tenant, the landlord and the third party’s status will inevitably weaken in reverse. In this regard, the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act (the “Act”) guarantees tenant’s right to request for contract renewal so that the tenant can continue its right to lease the commercial building, but at the same time, the Act stipulates the right to refuse the contract renewal (Article 10 (1)) and the right to immediately terminate the lease agreement (Article 10-8), granting a landlord the right to terminate the lease agreement when the reasons for protecting the tenant are denied. Among the legal grounds to refuse the request for contract renewal stipulated in Article 10 (1) of the Act, subparagraphs 1, 4 and 5 provides grounds to terminate the lease agreement when the tenant engages in any acts of destroying the trust relationship, which raise controversies over the right to immediately terminate the lease agreement. First of all, regarding interpretation of Article 10 (1) 1 of the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act, when the tenant of the commercial building has been in arrear with the rent as he/she misunderstands the due date of rent, or when the tenant somewhat delayed the payment of rent due to the difficult economic situations, but the tenant pays the overdue rent immediately after the economy recovers striving to maintain good lease relationship with the landlord, then it is hard to see that the trust relationship between the landlord and the tenant has been destroyed. Even in such case, if the landlord of a commercial building is allowed to refuse the tenant’s request for contract renewal pursuant to Article 10-8 of the Act, it can lead to unreasonable consequences that deprive the opportunities not only to renew the lease agreement but also to recover premium on the leased building or investments in facilities from the tenant. Accordingly, when interpreting whether or not the landlord of the commercial building can exercise the right to refuse contract renewal based on the grounds stipulated in Article 10 (1) 1 of the Act, the facts that “whether such tenant has been in arrears with an amount equivalent to three period of rent” as well as “whether such overdue rent equivalent to three period of rent has broken the trust relationship so as to terminate the lease agreement” should be considered, and it seems more consistent with the purpose of the Act to interpret that the landlord can refuse the tenant’s request for contract renewal only when the substantive requirements are met. Next, it is my opinion that the right to refuse the request for contract renewal based on Article 10 (1) 4 of the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act shall also be construed by referring to the opinion that even when the tenant subleases all or part of the leased building without the consent of the landlord, the landlord’s right to terminate the lease agreement shall be denied except for the case that it is acknowledged the interests of the landlord may be infringed unless the landlord’s right to immediately terminate the agreement is admitted considering the process of sublease, ratio of subleased part of the commercial building and concerns over re-sublease pursuant to Article 629 (2) (Restriction on Assignment of Right of Lease and Sub-lease) of the Civil Law. In addition, in accordance with Article 632 of the Civil Law which stipulates that “in case where a tenant allows a third person to use small part of the leased building, the lease agreement may not be terminated on the ground of sublease”, it shall not be interpreted that the landlord may refuse the tenant’s request for contract renewal for the reason of sublease by constructing Article 10 (1) of the Act only as it is written. Furthermore, Article 10 (1) 4 of the Act which grants the landlord the right to refuse the request for contract renewal is based on the ground that the trust relationship between the landlord and the tenant has been destroyed. In other words, if the tenant’s act of subleasing the leased building without the consent of landlord has not been led to the destruction of trust relationship between the landlord and the tenant, the landlord’s right to refuse the request for contract renewal should not be admitted. Lastly, with respect to the interpretation of Article 10 (1) 5 of the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act, when the supreme court interpreted Article 374 of the Civil Law which stipulates the “Duty of Obligor to Deliver Specific Thing with Good Manager’s Care”, the Court determined that even if damage to a commercial building occurs in the course of remodeling the building for business, if the damage is not materially exposed to the outside as it is an unavoidable measure for the business, and if it is possible to easily restore it to its original state after termination of the lease agreement, then it shall not fall under the cases where such tenant has destroyed all or part of the building intentionally or by gross negligence. Taken such determination into consideration, it would be difficult to see that the landlord’s right to refuse the request for contract renewal under Article 10 (1) 5 of the Act or the right to immediately terminate the agreement under Article 546 of the Civil Law can be admitted. In short, even if the landlord is granted the right to refuse the request for contract renewal based on the legal grounds stipulated in each subparagraph of Article 10 (1) of the Act, instead of interpreting that the landlord may exercise the rights to refuse the request for contract renewal or immediately terminate the lease agreement against the tenant by applying the legal language, interpreting it flexibly according to individual cases in consideration of the specific relevance that has been implemented through legal precedents related to lease agreement under the Civil Law more conforms with the purpose of the Act to protect goodwill and interests of tenant by guaranteeing the continuation of the right to lease to the extent that it does not destroy the trust relationship between landlord and tenant.