Daily Archives: September 25, 2011

110925 “Slave Contract Nullified” Super Junior’s Hankyung Appeal Withdrawn (+more info about the lawsuit)


The lawsuit between Super Junior’s former Chinese member Hankyung and SM Entertainment over their exclusive contract has been resolved.

On the 25th, following Seoul’s High Court’s civil jury of 19 members (Presiding Judge Go Euiyoung), Hankyung’s lawyer from Horizon Line law firm (the name could be off, I translated it literally) submitted a request to waive the lawsuit over his exclusive contract.

It was said that because of Hankyung’s youthfulness, “he’s had continuous concerts overseas and he hasn’t been able to rest once in the span of two years thanks to the extremely busy schedule he has,” and “it won’t do for him to have to keep paying penalty fines because of this contract and have this affect his current activities.”

From a superior position in the partnership, SM wanted to trap 21-year-old Hankyung into a contract that would keep him with their company until he was 34.

Despite the fact that the court attempted to mediate prior to the announcement, Hankyung said that “his trust relationship with SM had collapsed,” while SM claimed that Hankyung “acted independently before the decision of the exclusive contract was finalized,” which led to their legal battle.

A member of the jury said, “the exclusive contract drawn up January of 2003, the altered contract made in February of 2007, and the annexed contract of December of 2007 were all signed by both parties but there is no effect,” and so the plaintiff has won.

via Naver, translated by soluna413 (tumblr)
Shared by @sapphir3bluu

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If you did not completely understand the vocabulary, here is a simpler explanation from @geng_bao :

Earlier this was reported in Korean news:  “Slave Contract Nullified” Super Junior’s Hankyung Appeal Withdrawn (link to an English translation by soluna413 @ tumblr)

However, since it seems like a lot of people have trouble understanding the legal terminology used, our admin Windchime wrote up this summary based on a Chinese translation to explain everything:

On December 21st 2010 the Courts declared Han Geng the winner of his case against SM, at that time SM declared that “they can not accept the decision” and filed an appeal attempting to get the courts to overturn the decision roughly 2 weeks (?) later. I don’t really remember the exact date. No major news sources really reported about it, so maybe a lot of ppl never knew that SME appealed.

So technically Han Geng hasn’t exactly won the case due to SME appealing. However, since he has the court decision made on December 21st to back him up, his contract with SME is considered invalid unless SME wins the appeal. However, his contract would still exist unless SME loses or drops the appeal. (If anyone still searches Han Geng on naver, they will see that he is still listed as under SME, this is because, due to SME appealing the court’s first decision, Han Geng’s contract with SME still exist, he just is not bound by it until further court notice. Naver has stated after an inquiry that when Han Geng officially wins the appeal, they will remove SME as his company.)

This new thing that Han Geng is requesting the courts to drop SME’s appeal since it’s not going anywhere. Meaning it’s pretty much asking the court to declare SME’s appeal invalid. If Han Geng’s petition is granted, then SME will be forced to drop the case, and the first court decision, which is Han Geng winning the case will remain. Meaning that if he wins this case he would be officially free of SME.

This new thing Han Geng is filing is pretty much him say to the courts that he’s doesn’t want to waste time with SME anymore and he thinks SME’s appeal is ridiculous so he can officially be free.

MORE INFO

SM appealed in January 2011 because they wanted Hangeng to pay the contract cancellation fees. HG’s side wants to dismiss that.

Hangeng did win the lawsuit. The court ruled him as the winner of the lawsuit and that he didn’t need to pay, but SM appealed their decision to try to make him pay. So now that they appealed the court’s decision, Hangeng hasn’t ‘won’ yet.

The article from sujuism.blogspot.com about Hangeng dropping his lawsuit, which can be found here, was also re-posted by dkpopnews, a K-pop newsblog, which you can find at this link. We also posted the same false info without knowing the article was contained false info. Our post about it can be found here. Remember, Hangeng is not dropping the lawsuit. His lawyers filed for SM’s appeal to be dismissed. We posted another quick explanation about the lawsuit on twitlonger. It’s only less than 4 sentences. Here’s the link: http://t.co/mkqwHroN

Hangeng won the lawsuit, so how could you want to drop the lawsuit lol?

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Updated… allkpop also  misunderstood the situation because the Korean article they translated from was the one who misunderstood the situation. Here’s allkpop’s article >> http://www.allkpop.com/2011/09/former-super-junior-member-hangengs-slave-contract-lawsuit-comes-to-a-close

On the Korean court’s official site, it’s an appeal dismissal by Hangeng’s lawyers. The Korean article allkpop got the info from was the one who misunderstood and now everyone’s confused and getting the wrong info… sigh…

Shared by @sapphir3bluu

—UPDATED WITH CORRECT TRANSLATION– 110925 [NEWS] Hangeng Drops his Lawsuit Against SM


SORRY EVERYONE. The source I got the translation for this from… (http://sujuism.blogspot.com/2011/09/news-hangeng-drops-his-lawsuit-against.html)

they mistranslated the title and parts of the article. Hangeng did not drop the lawsuit. Read this for a quick explanation about the lawsuit: http://t.co/QQVpxvfi

Here’s the correct translation of the article with other info about Hangeng’s lawsuit. http://t.co/ajhiu8mT

The contract lawsuit between a former Chinese member of Super Junior Hangeng and his former management company SM Entertainment came to an end.

According to Seoul High Court 19th Civil Department on September 25, Hangeng’s attorney Jipyong & Jisung submitted a request for dismissal for his suit of confirmation of effectiveness of exclusive contract.

Hangeng’s party alleged that he was handling an overwhelming schedule which included numerous concerts overseas, so much so that he did not take a break during the two years.  The party also alleged that Hangeng must continue his unreasonable schedule due to various penalties in the contract.

The party added that SM was in a dominant position when the contract was formed and emphasized that the contract is unfair because it binds Hangeng to the contract until he is thirty-four years old.

Before announcing its judgement, the court tried to get the two parties to mediate.  However, Hangeng’s party refused claiming that the trust between him and SM has been destroyed.  SM also refused claiming that Hangeng acted independently against the contract before the judgment came out.

In the first round of Hangeng’s court battle, the court found in favor the plaintiff holding that the three contracts formed which are an exclusive contract formed in January of 2003, a modified contract in February of 2007 and an accessory contract made in December of 2007 have no legal effect.

Source: Newsis
Translated by Minnie @ SUJUISM.BLOGSPOT.COM
PERMISSION MUST BE OBTAINED FROM SUJUISM.BLOGSPOT.COM TO RE-POST THE TRANSLATION