Kang Daniel
An exclusive Dispatch report regarding the conflict between Kang Daniel and LM Entertainment agency was released on Tuesday, April 2nd. The report said that the relationship between Kang Daniel and his agency was fine last year, including when he asked for a luxury villa on a housing estate in the Hannam area.
Launching Soompi, in the report, it was stated that LM Entertainment granted Kang Daniel’s request by paying an advance for the house of around 950 million won (around USD 836,300). But the problem arose when a woman referred to as Seol appeared. Seol is reportedly an agent in Hong Kong who works to contract Hallyu stars for business, such as advertisements and shows. Seol was also registered as a legal representative for the initial certification of the contract sent to terminate Kang Daniel’s contract. Earlier this year, Seol was reportedly introduced by Kang Daniel to LM Entertainment. Seol presented a proposal for Kang Daniel’s work abroad.
The conflict between Kang Daniel and LM Entertainment reportedly began when Seoul met LM as a legal representative of Kang Daniel on January 31st and asked to see his exclusive contract. Then on February 1st, Seol sent the certification content to LM including a power of attorney signed by Kang Daniel.
The power of attorney reads, “Kang Daniel signed that included unfair contract terms so that the request for the contract was considered invalid and so that the contract terms were renegotiated on February 28th,” the letter wrote. Kang Daniel himself signed a contract with LM Entertainment on February 2nd, 2018, and entered into force on February 2nd, 2019. Content certification on his contract was sent a day before the date the contract took effect.
The second notification was then sent to LM Entertainment on March 4th by the law firm Yulchon which is currently the attorney of Kang Daniel. One of the points presented was that LM did not pay Kang Daniel the 50 million won (around USD 44,000) that were promised when signing the contract. LM provided evidence that they have paid 48.35 million won (around USD 42,600) to Kang Daniel on April 14th, 2018. This is a payment of the contract minus a tax deduction of 3.3 percent.
Other points argue that LM Entertainment is registered as a popular culture business planning company on February 7th, 2019. They had not been officially registered when the contract was signed. This is one of the violations of the first clause of Article 13 in the contract in question.
“LM completed the registration on February 7th, 2019, which is five days after the start of the contract. Management rights and fulfillment of tasks are being carried out smoothly for other artists who sign the same requirements,” LM Entertainment said.
The biggest point of conflict is a joint contract between LM and MMO Entertainment. The attorney of Kang Daniel previously mentioned that the core rights of exclusive contracts, including the right to produce and distribute music content, concert rights, and international business, and the right to negotiate about Kang Daniel’s activities in the entertainment industry will be exclusively given to third parties, MMO Entertainment.
LM Entertainment argued that Kang Daniel and his mother were aware of the business partnership between LM and MMO. Besides that, MMO also does not have the power to run any business (for Kang Daniel) without the approval of LM Entertainment, CEO Gil Jong-hwa, and Kang Daniel himself.
Kang Daniel himself has submitted a request for the handling of his contract to the Seoul District Central Court. The decision on this matter was made on April 5th.
After his conflict with LM Entertainment ended, Kang Daniel founded One Man Agency with the name “Konnect Entertainment” to help with his solo activities.
L.Joe (Former Member of Teen Top)
At the beginning of 2017, L. Joe decided to leave the group that raised his name Teen Top and TOP Media agency. However, the decision was actually a long tide with the emergence of a lawsuit submitted by both parties.
After L. Joe had sued the agency because of the delay in handling his solo career, now it is the turn of TOP Media agency to sue the ex-foster artist for an exclusive contract violation. This demand followed a mediation process that did not find a meeting point some time ago.
A representative from TOP Media said, “We finally filed a lawsuit in court because it could no longer be handled. It is true that we have filed a lawsuit against L. Joe at the Seoul Central Court for violating his exclusive contract,” quoted Allkpop.
The demand filed by TOP Media was to ask L. Joe to pay compensation for losses suffered by the agency after he unilaterally terminated the exclusive contract. As is known, Teen Top was still bound by an exclusive contract with TOP Media until January 2018.
Previously, on July 31st, the Korean Entertainment Management Association (KEMA) had banned L. Joe from contacting other agencies as long as they were still in conflict with TOP Media. However, this guy, whose real name is Lee Byung Hun, is promoting his own solo and musical activities.
KARA
Previously, three of the members of KARA claimed to have reconciled with their management. But it turns out that now all three of them put the files in court for financial reasons. Seungyeon, Nicole, and Jiyoung claimed not to have gotten a fair fee for their hard work. The three also demanded that DSP Media pass to the Seoul High Court, Korea. They demand transparency of income and expenditure that goes through management.
“Without prior compromise, the agency reduced promotional costs from our payment, it could be classified as embezzlement. From January to June 2010 we had revenues of $410 thousand US, while promotion costs reached $390 thousand US. Costs were very excessive,” said the interpreter talk all three on Monday (02/14/2011).
They also revealed that for six months each member had only received $860 US in income. According to them, the fee is very unfair. Previously reported by Seungyeon, Nicole and Jiyoung had terminated the contract from DSP Media on January 19th. However, they still followed all the activities carried out by KARA. A spokesman for DSP Media said he was shocked to hear the lawsuit of the three KARA personnel.
“We met several times, but it is true that we are in a dispute and will discuss. But because they are filming ‘URAKARA’ in Japan, we have talked to their parents until they return. Now that we just found out they filed a lawsuit, we were just shocked. First, we will hold a meeting with the company before issuing a statement,” said the spokesman.
Hello Venus’ Alice
Hello Venus’ Alice is said to have won a lawsuit involving her and the previous agency she was signed under. Reporting from the Asia Economy, on April 30th, the Seoul District Court sentenced A Entertainment agency to guilty charges for Alice and was responsible for paying a fine of 80 million won.
Seven years ago, in August, Alice promoted with a girl group formed by A Entertainment with the stage name Ora. Artists and agencies started to get out of line about the clothes Alice was wearing. Alice said that the clothes she wore during her performance were uncomfortable and too open and provocative, making it difficult for her to perform. But her agency forced her to wear inappropriate clothes.
In addition, Alice also revealed that her agency did not provide good training and decent dormitories. Besides that, A Entertainment didn’t pay her 2 million won. Alice said that A Entertainment also forced herself and the other artists to carry out entertainment that was given a rate of 19+.
But A Entertainment denied this and accused Alice of not carrying out the training process well besides that she had made a loss for the MV production process worth 80 million won. In the end, the court decided to support Alice. The judge stated, “The agency claims Ms. Song violated the contract and did not carry out her schedule properly but there is no evidence to prove this. Therefore, we cannot accept the agency’s claims for this case.”
Jun Hyosung
Jun Hyosung and TS Entertainment’s competition was reopened to the public. On Wednesday (3/28/2018), a second petition for Jun Hyosung’s claim to TS Entertainment was held again. The meeting was to confirm the invalidity of her exclusive contract with the agency. The legal representative of Jun Hyosung said that his client no longer gets paid. The last payment received by Jun Hyosung was around Rp. 77.4 million in 2015. After that, Jun Hyosung no longer received her payment.
“Jun Hyosung did not receive proper payment even though she worked hard,” said the representative of Jun Hyosung. They said that the defendant refused to submit detailed evidence about the payment. The reason is that this is confidential. Meanwhile, TS Entertainment insisted that there were no problems with payments. The agency itself has submitted CCTV information videos about the payment.
“Payment details have been explained adequately,” said the agency’s representative. Because of this problem, Jun Hyosung remained determined to end her contract with TS Entertainment. However, TS Entertainment stated that it was impossible to terminate the contract between the two. Because the contract is still valid until 2021. Additional applications are scheduled for May 2nd. Jun Hyosung has actually filed a lawsuit regarding her exclusive contract since September 2017. In addition to demanding the cancellation of the contract, Jun Hyosung has also left Secret and opted for a solo promotion.
Samuel Kim
Samuel Kim’s decision to take an independent path made the Brave Entertainment agency choose to take legal action to settle it. Now Samuel is a lawyer and his mother explains the problem they are experiencing. “Starting last year, there have been several disputes between Kim Samuel and his agency,” said lawyer Samuel. It was said that the two main conflicts were issues of payment and participation in events that were not mutually agreed upon.
“My client has a problem not receiving the right account report and ambiguous income details. This has appeared several times but he has never been given the right income statement. Because this is where conflict arises. The second problem is caused by the digital currency business that deals with music content run by CEO Brave Entertainment. In Samuel’s contract, the conditions are such that revenue from the event or concert is shared, and promotional activities for Brave Entertainment will be considered additional and money may or may not be obtained. But Samuel participated in promotions for truly separate companies that were not related to his agency and contract,” said the lawyer.
“Samuel went abroad for an event, and at that time, he appeared, took photos, and recorded promotional videos, but he never agreed to do this activity. The company only gets approval to conduct events abroad and then makes him participate in other activities without telling him about the contents of the contract or the terms of income.”
“Only after fans and others complained about Samuel’s participation in an event for digital currency businesses, the agency showed fake contracts and claimed that their actions were justified,” the lawyer added. Samuel’s mother talked about her son’s conflict with Brave Entertainment through a press release. “Recently, Brave Entertainment has opposed Samuel’s guardian wishes and lied to force Samuel to get involved with the CEO’s personal digital currency company that has nothing to do with his activities as an artist. This really destroyed our trust in the agency. We submitted a request for repairs, but because the situation was not corrected, we notified the agency about the termination of the contract and left after completing the remaining schedule,” said Samuel’s mother.
“It was decided after notifying the agency about the termination of the contract that the problem could not be resolved through mutual agreement, and on May 20th, a complaint was lodged. After notifying the manager and staff, Samuel left for the United States for training. The claim that he had terminated the contact was baseless, because there had been communication through many telephone calls. As Samuel’s mother, I feel very unfortunate that he might be hurt by this deflected truth.”
That’s List of K-Pop Idols Who Have Filed Lawsuits Against Their Company: Hangeng, Kris, Kang Daniel, etc. I hope you get more information about your idol and Korean entertainment. There are a lot of more information about it in Byeol Korea. So, don’t miss it! If you have some questions or want to add additional information please put the comment below.
