Seoul High Court Rules In Favor Of Yoo Jae Suk In Lawsuit Against Former Agency

Yoo Jae Suk’s lawsuit against his former agency has finally come to an end.

On November 22, the Seoul High Court ruled in favor of Yoo Jae Suk and Kim Yong Man in a lawsuit against their former agency “S” regarding unclaimed broadcast promotions payments.

The court explained that Yoo Jae Suk and Kim Yong Man have the right to claim the payments. This maintains the ruling of the Supreme Court, which judged in January that the actual parties in the contract were Yoo Jae Suk and Kim Yong Man, although the broadcasters sent their payments to “S” under the exclusive contract. Unless significant evidence is newly presented in a retrial, the High Court usually follows the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Yoo Jae Suk signed an exclusive contract with “S” in March 2005, and the term was for five years starting from March 2006. “S” owed Yoo Jae Suk for his appearances in various variety shows, such as MBC’s “Infinite Challenge,” SBS’s “Running Man,” and KBS’s “Vitamin,” from May to October 2010.

However, the company was forced to hand over all of its bonds, including the portion of the appearance fee, to creditors in June 2010. In response, Yoo Jae Suk and three other broadcasters announced the termination of exclusive contracts with “S” and demanded their payments.

The first and second trials ruled in favor of the creditors because they believed that the parties in the contract were “S” under the exclusive contract. It was stated in the first trial, “‘S’ cannot be considered to have reconsigned the service to Yoo Jae Suk or others, so it cannot be said that they have the right to claim the performance-based bonds,” and the second trial also ruled to the same effect.

The Supreme Court had a different judgement. It said, “In this case, there are no contracts to appear on the program, and there are only previously written contracts with ‘S’ regarding some of the shows that Yoo Jae Suk appeared on during the contract period. It is not possible to conclude that it was ‘S’ that signed a contract with a broadcasting company. On the contrary, the broadcaster paid the appearance fees to ‘S’ only after confirming the intention of Yoo Jae Suk and the others.”

The Supreme Court stated, “In the case of Yoo Jae Suk, who secured the upper hand in terms of negotiating power, it is common for him to decide to appear on his own, and even if ‘S’ acted as an agent for signing the contract, the contract was deemed to be his own.”

With the decision to rule in his favor, Yoo Jae Suk will now be able to claim the payment amount for his past programs.

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