EXO members (from left) Baekhyun, Xiumin, Chen. Picture: Twitter/@weareoneEXO
Okay-pop boy group EXO’s Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen have lodged a grievance with the antitrust regulator towards their company SM Leisure’s “unfair” contract phrases, their lawyer mentioned Monday, June 5.
The members of the nine-piece group have been in a dispute with the Okay-pop powerhouse over their excessively lengthy contract durations and the company’s alleged lack of transparency in monetary settlements.
They notified the company via their lawyer final week of their determination to terminate their contracts, which the corporate mentioned have been renewed in December, citing these causes.
On Sunday, the singers took their grievance to the Truthful Commerce Fee in keeping with their earlier warning, based on their lawyer.
“On behalf of my purchasers, I submitted a grievance to the Truthful Commerce Fee towards SM Leisure yesterday,” Atty. Lee Jae-hak from the Seoul-based regulation agency Lin mentioned in a press launch.
He added his aspect is in search of the authorities’ intervention in “the corporate’s act of abusing its dominant place in enterprise.”
The grievance addresses a number of points together with the company’s coverage of creating the debut date as the place to begin for unique contracts, which have been signed previous to the debut itself. It additionally questioned the comparatively lengthy contract durations for SM artists in contrast with these managed by different Okay-pop businesses.
The complainants argue that regardless of receiving two corrective orders from the antitrust watchdog in 2007 and 2011, the corporate continued to implement the disputed phrases. Baekhyun unveiled a part of his contact with the agency to again up his declare.
“If the minimal variety of albums (specified within the contract) just isn’t launched, the contract interval routinely extends till the requirement is met, and there’s no specified higher restrict on the length,” they mentioned. “That is clearly a slave contract.”
SM additionally launched a press assertion vowing to conditionally present copies of the trio’s settlement supplies as they’ve demanded.
“After cautious consideration, we determined to offer the copies on the situation that the three and their brokers don’t use them for any unfair goal aside from checking the content material,” the corporate mentioned. “We additionally defined this example to different EXO members and requested for his or her consent or understanding.”
SM, nonetheless, refused to simply accept the trio’s calls for for the termination of their contacts.
“We wish to make it clear {that a} contract shouldn’t be terminated solely with a unilateral notification,” it mentioned.
The corporate added it can proceed discussing the matter with the three artists to stop any disruption to the band’s future actions. (Yonhap/AP)
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