Korea Management Association Urges NewJeans to Reconsider Contract Dispute with ADOR
The Korea Management Association (KMA) has called for NewJeans to withdraw their position regarding the ongoing conflict with ADOR. Korea Management Association (KMA,) issued an official statement on December 3rd, emphasizing the importance of mutual trust in exclusive contracts within the K-pop industry.
The statement stated, “The popular culture and arts sector thrives on respect for exclusive contracts between artists and agencies. This foundation of trust, built over decades, doesn’t mean every issue warrants contract termination.” The agency further criticized NewJeans’ approach, saying, “Their current stance, which bypasses established procedures, suggests a lack of commitment to maintaining the contract from the outset.”
Legal Implications and Industry Standards
The KMA highlighted the legal aspects of the dispute, asserting that Korean law protects established contracts and addresses disputes through proper channels. Korea Management Association emphasized, “NewJeans’ claim of contract termination is unfounded. Such unilateral actions could severely damage the trust underlying exclusive contracts industry-wide.”
KMA elaborated on the industry’s investment model: “Our sector, particularly for popular singers, operates on an ‘investment in advance’ principle. Companies investing in new talent naturally become vulnerable in exclusive contracts. Their primary goal is to protect artists, maintain contracts, and generate profits exceeding initial investments.”
Concerns for the K-pop Industry’s Future
The Korea Management Association expressed worry about the broader implications of NewJeans’ actions. “If artists can terminate contracts maliciously, companies have limited recourse beyond claiming damages. NewJeans’ approach threatens to undermine the very foundation of our pop culture and arts industry,” Han cautioned.
In conclusion, Korea Management Association urged for a peaceful resolution: “We hope NewJeans will reconsider their position and engage in constructive dialogue with ADOR. Our sincere wish is for an amicable settlement, avoiding any worst-case scenarios.”
This high-profile dispute between ADOR and NewJeans continues to draw attention, highlighting the complex dynamics between K-pop artists and their management agencies.
FULL STATEMENT of KMA about ADOR and NewJeans
As the recent conflict between ADOR and NewJeans intensifies, it is having various negative impacts on our popular culture and arts industry. Regarding this issue, our association conveys this statement with the hope that our popular culture and arts industry will once again take a leap forward, from the perspective of those working in the industry, expressing the problems with the NewJeans group and the resulting exclusive contract, the public’s viewpoint, and the sense of frustration felt by industry workers.
Our popular culture and arts industry respects the exclusive contracts made between artists and their agencies based on mutual trust. This foundation is imbued with the consideration and trust built up between artists and entertainment agencies over the past decades, which simply means that the occurrence of a problem does not automatically constitute a condition for terminating the contract.
However, the current position of NewJeans, which ignores all procedures, can only be interpreted as not considering or not willing to make the mutual efforts necessary to maintain the contract from the beginning. Our law basically protects contracts that have been made, and deals with disputes by holding parties accountable when they reach the stage of contract termination. This would be meaningful in protecting the contract until it is completely terminated, so the current claim of contract termination by NewJeans is absurd. We should also be very careful as the loss of contract validity through such unilateral claims of termination could deal a big blow to the trust relationship of overall exclusive contracts.
Artists and entertainment agencies are not in a simple employment relationship, but work progresses in a mutually cooperative relationship. Under an exclusive contract, the artist must cooperate with the agency’s activities by exerting their talents and qualities to the best of their ability, and the agency must support various activities so that the artist’s talents and qualities can be maximized. However, when such a dispute occurs, the claim that an exclusive contract can be terminated just by declaration brings fatal consequences to the Korean popular culture and arts industry, which involves long-term contracts of several years and investments from the trainee period, not short-term contracts.
If anyone could terminate a contract just by declaration, how could the effectiveness of exclusive contracts be guaranteed, and who would invest based on such uncertain contracts? In this respect, contract termination should be approached very cautiously, and the issue of contract termination should be discussed under the premise of maintaining and supplementing the contract.
Lastly, our industry, especially for popular singers among popular culture and arts industries, has been operating under the principle of ‘invest first, recover later’ from the past to the present.
As long as the company has invested first, it has no choice but to become the weaker party in the exclusive contract. In particular, for companies that have nurtured new talents through investment, the biggest task is to protect the artists as much as possible, maintain the contract well, and generate profits until they generate at least more than the investment. In other words, when various disputes occur between artists and agencies, they are in a position where they can only hope for the maintenance and preservation of the exclusive contract from a thoroughly disadvantaged position.
However, the current law does not consider the company’s position at all. Especially, if you want to terminate the contract maliciously, there is nothing you can do to maintain the contract other than to finally claim damages. In this respect, the current NewJeans-like approach is a very malicious way that could shake the foundation of our popular culture and arts industry. Therefore, our association hopes that NewJeans will withdraw its existing position and respond to the conversation with the company, and we sincerely hope that the dispute will be concluded well, and we earnestly pray that it will not flow into the worst situation.
Furthermore, we were able to confirm how significant weaknesses exist in the current laws for maintaining stable contracts. We hope that government departments and related parties can discuss from scratch for the long-term development of the industry. For the continuous development of our popular culture and arts industry, we at the Korea Management Federation will not sit idly by, but will continue to watch this issue and do our best to respond actively. Thank you.
About NewJeans members > NewJeans in Emergency Press Conference, Reason why doing it on 28th
Source article containing Korea Management Association statement https://m.entertain.naver.com/now/article/108/0003287055
