Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
A few days ago, nine members of THE BOYZ filed criminal embezzlement charges against ONE HUNDRED CEO Cha Ga Won following the first hearing of their contract injunction request. Perhaps they were emboldened by what they (or their lawyers) heard, because the said injunction they filed for around a month ago was granted recently by the court.
The reason for the ruling was it was determined that ONE HUNDRED didn’t make payments, didn’t provide receipts, and didn’t fulfill their contractual duties, all of which were the grounds THE BOYZ filed on.
Today, the court ruled in favor of the artists’ request for an injunction, thereby confirming that their exclusive contracts with ONE HUNDRED LABEL Co., Ltd. (the “agency”) have been lawfully terminated and are no longer in effect.
The court determined that the agency had violated its obligation to pay settlement earnings, failed to provide settlement data necessary to verify the accuracy of those payments, and did not fulfill key contractual duties such as management support and artist protection. Taking these factors into account, the court concluded that the trust between the two parties had been irreparably damaged due to the agency’s fault.
But the most interesting reveal from this was actually that the company was essentially trying to take back the signing bonuses they gave out by framing them as an advance payment (a loan, basically).
The agency had previously argued, both in the media and during injunction proceedings, that the contract signing bonus constituted an “advance payment.” However, the court explicitly rejected this claim. The court determined that the signing bonus and the distribution of settlement earnings from generated revenue are governed by separate provisions within the contract, and that there is no agreement allowing the already-paid signing bonus to replace or offset earnings owed to the artists. The court further clarified that the signing bonus was a separate form of compensation paid to the artists—who had already established significant popularity and recognition at the time—as part of securing their contracts, and is fundamentally separate from settlement payments.
As such, the signing bonus paid by the agency reflects the artists’ current and future value and marketability, offered by the agency to recruit them, and was agreed upon by both parties at the time the contracts were signed. The agency’s current attempt to distort the scale and nature of the signing bonus ultimately amounts to reversing and denying its own prior judgment and decision.
Yeah, they must be really hurting for money.
It makes me wonder what’s up with New — the only member that didn’t leave with his group — in terms of whether he’s waiting for better timing somehow or if he was maybe promised something by the company if he stayed or something like that.
Either way, this ruling only deepens ONE HUNDRED’s ongoing implosion, and their only response to it was that basically this was not the final ruling. True, but it does feel like wishful thinking by them at this juncture.
