No Min Woo loses lawsuit to SME due to a lack of ‘concrete proof’

Over a year ago, former TRAX member No Min Woo sued SM Entertainment retroactively for holding him into a “slave contract”, asking for about $100,000 in compensation, claiming that SME stopped supporting him and interfered with his promoting even today.

Recently, the ruling came down, and SME won the lawsuit due to a lack of proof.

On July 20, SM Entertainment was ultimately found innocent of all charges as the court announced, “The evidences provided were not enough to prove that SM Entertainment has continuously interfered with Noh Min Woo’s promotion or lacked support. There is no concrete proof.”

I found this lawsuit interesting because it could’ve opened up a can of worms in terms of how artists subjected to shitty conditions (worse than today’s idols) could sue their former companies retroactively. However, as has been proven by this ruling (and JYJ), it’s extremely difficult to show blacklisting is going on since that’s something not exactly written down or documented, and is more of a thing that’s accepted as the status quo.

So unfortunately, a potential absolute clusterfuck has been averted here.