I know the headline is harsh, but honestly, we really don’t know what’s going on other than the breaking buzz that SM may want to settle the case between itself and JYJ, along with another case involving avex. Update: A translated report of where this story is supposed to have originated has been posted below.
If this news turns out to be accurate, it will have many people wondering just why SM wants to keep this case from proceeding in court right around the time where financial witness(es) are supposed to be testifying under oath about money regarding SM’s accounting figures on TVXQ.
This so called reconciliation would undoubtedly include JYJ being on the short end of the stick, and possibly being back under SM’s control. I’m confident enough to say that’s a big no-no for almost all JYJ fans.
Oct 29 was a big day not only for JYJ but for KPop and the Korean Entertainment Industry… whether they want to acknowledge it or not.
On that day, JYJ became the first KPop group to play a concert by themselves in Europe. Nobody has done that before, according to reports.
Most KPop groups who have played Europe came in packs of acts, with dozens of artists split into groups of 12, 5, 9 or whatever number (ie. SUJU AND TVXQ2 AND SNSD AND SHINee AND whoever else).
JYJ went to Europe, got their logistics in order, and put on a show for thousands of people in a country that is not predominately Asian. And the scariest thing for executives is probably that JYJ did it without help from any one of the major mainstream Korean OR Japanese entertainment companies. No SM. No avex.
A fan with the sign that looks like “FUCK SM” also made it into the local Korean newspaper. Woops!
Closer view:
And all of a sudden, there’s talk of a settlement. Oh man, I don’t believe in ‘coincidences’ this big.
Again, if this information turns out to be true, more info would probably be coming out soon.
To recap, JYJ (Jaejoong Yoochun, Junsu) sued their former agency (SM Entertainment) to be released from an archaic exclusivity clause in their contract. That exclusivity contract meant that SM had a unilateral right to make decisions about everything TVXQ did.
What’s been the hold up for a final ruling in the main case so far seems to be the issue of money. So why the sudden chatter of SM seeking a settlement between itself, avex, and JYJ?
Some observers of this case have openly speculated that SM doesn’t want to reveal the financial records they have regarding the real amount of money generated by TVXQ.
At some point during the investigation of this case, it was revealed that SM still may owe money to members of JYJ for at least the Mirotic album.
Reported here in an earlier post, SM only has to pay members $50,000 when an album sells 500,000 copies or more. But when TVXQ achieved this goal with Mirotic, SM didn’t pay them any of that money and had no valid excuse in Court for why they hadn’t done so.
In a hearing held in March 2011, it was revealed that SM only counted the sales once, and stopped counting right before the 500,000 mark; stopping at 480,000 allegedly on purpose so the company wouldn’t have to pay members the already considerably low $50,000. In other words, SM allegedly split up the album count so they wouldn’t have to pay TVXQ for selling the full 500,000+ copies.
Going back to early rulings in this case, the Court sided with JYJ and a judge is reportedly on record stating there were serious problems with the contract between SM and TVXQ members.
As reported here in a Feb 2011 post, in the ruling the Court stated JYJ was in an inferior or subordinate position to negotiate because SM had the unilateral right to make all the decisions.
The Court said the exclusive contract, “cannot be justified under any circumstances such as overseas expansion or a decrease of investment risk,” and that the SM contract is “invalid not only on the account of exceptionally long term of the contract but other clauses such as interference in JYJ’s every action and excessive penalty of breach of the contract.”
Earlier this year, Seoul District Court threw out two injunction requests filed by SM against JYJ. They also upheld an earlier ruling making sure SM has no right to interfere with JYJ’s current activities.
UPDATE 1:
One translated report has this information originating from a blog post by writer named Toshiro Ono. According to translated reports about his blog entry, one attorney for CJeS got a call from Jihye Shin, another attorney representing JYJ in avex.
Shin allegedly told the other attorney that SM requested a “reconciliation” for the lawsuits in Korea and Japan as far back as Sept 22 2011.
Like I did before, I’ll stress that this information has yet to be independently confirmed. But here is the translated report as posted by imickycassie and reportedly translated by TheJYJFiles:
The below is from records of the trial between C-JeS Entertainment and Avex Management at Tokyo District Court. (Trial Material for Civil Section 29. 2011 No.17612, Plaintiff : C-JeS Entertainment, Defendant : Avex Management Document prepared by C-JeS Entertainment on Oct. 19, 2011)
The “attorney for the plaintiff” mentioned here means the attorney representing C-JeS in the trial at the Tokyo District Court.
“On Sept. 22, 2011 the attorney for the plaintiff [T/N: attorney for C-JeS in Japan] received a call from Attorney Jihye Shin who is representing JYJ in Korea saying “We received a request from SM for reconciliation for both the trial in Korea and Japan. However we find it difficult to understand their true motive in making this request.”
Recently in the lawsuit in Korea concerning the validity of the exclusive long term contract between management companies and artists, the Supreme Court ruled that long term contracts between management companies and artists are invalid, signifying there is a high chance that the Korean court will rule in JYJ’s favor in the lawsuit between SM and JYJ. It can be presumed that SM, because of this turn of events, decided that it would be better to resolve the lawsuits in both Korea and Japan at once by reconciliation. Also, the request made by SM to Attorney Shin assumes that the defendant [T/N: Avex Management] will follow SM’s instructions. Therefore it is easy to presume that the defendant is obstructing the management of JYJ in Japan out of concern for the wishes of SM.”
[rest omitted]
Source: Toshiro Ono’s Blog
Translation by: TheJYJFiles
What will come of this latest chatter? We will keep you posted as more information becomes available or if the information turns out to be false.
Source mat.:
https://www.dongbanger.com/latest/sm-loses-in-court-again-injunction-requests-against-jyj-thrown-out/
Toshiro Ono blog: http://henkoukanousei.blog61.fc2.com/blog-entry-215.html
Trans: TheJYJFiles