After the majority of the members of SK girl group LOONA has dissociated with Blockberry Creative, Universal Music Japan has reportedly filed to obtain management rights of the group.
The management fiasco of LOONA is far from over as Korean media outlet reported on February 2 that Universal Music Japan is seeking to enforce exclusive management rights to LOONA.
The exclusive contract was apparently signed way back September 2019, a totally separate contract from their existing contract with their original Korean agency, Blockberry Creative, and was set to exist regardless of their situation with their Korean counterpart.
According to Asian Junkie, the contract reportedly states, “Regardless whether the artists’ contract with Blockberry Creative management is broken or cancelled, the members must continue to fulfill their duties for this contract. Should they violate any terms of this contract, the artists must pay damages for failing to fulfill their responsibilities under Japanese law.“
Since 2019, Universal Japan has been handling LOONA's Japanese promotions and the girls are expected to fulfill their duties with the company which include activities such as making albums, attending fan meetings and other promotional events.
If the contract stays alive, all members — HaSeul, YeoJin, Yves, Olivia Hye, and Go Won — including previously removed member Chuu, and HeeJin, Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry, all who successfully won their lawsuit against BBC and had their exclusive contracts nullified, will be tied to UMJ for at least three years.
According to All Kpop, this kind of situation has happened in the K-pop scene before and continued their group activities in Japan even after the group disbanded in Korea.
One recent example is the K-pop girl group EXID, with every member not renewing their contracts with their Korean agency by 2020 but still went through with releasing a Japanese album as a group.
Additionally, Blockberry Creative confirmed its decision to ban the activities of LOONA members Chuu, Heejin, Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry from all entertainment activities on February 1.
Tags: #Kpop, #universalmusic, #girlgroup