Seoul Economic Daily: [Exclusive] LOONA Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry win their lawsuits to terminate exclusive contracts
Girl group LOONA, in conflict with its agency for issues including “unjust settlement of payments”, has won a temporary injunction lawsuit for contract termination. However, as the court has decided against some of the members in the lawsuit, group activities are at risk of falling apart.
On the 13th, regarding the injunction filed against their agency by the nine LOONA members to suspend their exclusive contracts, the Seoul Northern District Court 1st Civil Branch (presiding judge Jung Moonsung) decided that four would win, and five would lose.
The members whose contracts are suspended are Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, and Choerry. Starting from today, before the primary lawsuit is settled, these four are able to work freely. On the other hand, the contracts of Haseul, Yeojin, Yves, Olivia Hye, and Go Won with the agency will remain unchanged. Vivi and Hyunjin did not partake in the lawsuit.
While the four members had been keeping a contract with the same terms as Chuu’s, the other five members had some of the contract terms changed one to two years ago, and the court did not view the changed terms to be unjust enough to warrant terminating these contracts.
From earlier, Chuu had partially won a lawsuit to terminate her contract, under the reasoning that “the contract split earnings 3 to 7 while splitting the costs 5 to 5, wherein the final amount payable became negative”.
Though the members who partook in the lawsuit wanted to terminate their contracts together, the court’s ruling has created an awkward situation.
An official from Blockberry Creative said, we are still in the process of confirming the exact details”.
LOONA had already indefinitely delayed the release of their new album “The Origin Album 0”, which was scheduled for release on the 3rd of this month.
Newsen Excerpt:
With the court's ruling being made known, the official position given by Blockberry Creative last year has been revealed to be a lie. Contract issues with talents under an agency are a serious matter that requires a clear process of confirmation, with announcement of official positions based on facts. Yet, Blockberry Creative lied to Newsen on November 28 last year when news broke of some members filing an injunction, saying that ‘we confirm that this claim is groundless’.
JTBC Excerpt:
In addition, as the agency's official position that the report of Heejin, Haseul, Yeojin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry, Yves, Go Won, and Olivia Hye filing for an injunction to suspend their contracts (reported exclusively by this newspaper) was "groundless" has been proven false, it appears that chilly public opinion towards the agency will continue for some time.
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