SEOUL, South Korea (CelebrityAccess) — Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen, members of the popular K-pop group EXO announced they are ending their exclusive contracts with SM Entertainment and have taken legal action against the company over alleged unsettled payments.
“Since March 21 until recently, we have repeatedly requested SM to provide copies of materials and evidence for payments, but SM has maintained its unreasonable stance not to provide those documents,” an attorney for the artists said in a statement told the Korea Herald.
“Therefore, as of June 1, today, we notified (SM) of the nullification of the (three artists’) existing exclusive contracts with SM,” the statement added.
According to the statement provided to The Korea Herald, the three artists’ contract with SM Entertainment requires the company to pay them twice annually and to provide settlement documents to verify the value of the payments.
However, over the past 12 years, SM Entertainment has not provided adequate documentation to support the payments, despite requests from members of the group and their attorneys the statement said, representing a breach of contract.
The statement also took issue with the long-term contracts SM Entertainment requires its artists to sign, which, when considering time spent as trainees, often run as long as twenty years.
“Such long, exclusive terms excessively restrain the artists’ personal rights, which may face regulation by law as an unfair practice according to the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act,” the statement continued.
In their own statement released on Thursday, SM Entertainment said they plan to pursue legal remedies in the case.
“We have discovered that these outside forces are not only luring the artists to breach the valid exclusive contracts they have signed with the company but using them to get through to other artists to also violate the contract terms or sign double-contracts,” SM said in its statement.
“We will take legal action against these people who pursue only their greed and profit without any profound interest in the future or the rights of the artists,” SM said.
