[All] “News Jeans contract termination position must be withdrawn”… Korea Management Association announces position

As the group New Jeans announced the termination of their exclusive contract with their agency Adore, the Korea Management Association revealed its position.

The Korea Management Association released a statement on the 3rd, saying, "We hope that Newjins will withdraw its previous position and engage in dialogue with the company."

Below is the full statement from the Korea Management Association.

Recently, the dispute between Adore and Newjins has intensified, and it has had a negative impact on our popular culture and arts industry in various ways. Regarding this matter, our union is expressing its position on the group called Newjins and the problems with the exclusive contract resulting from it, as well as the public's perspective on it and the sense of emptiness felt by industry workers, and from the perspective of those in the popular culture and arts industry, in the hope that our popular culture and arts industry will once again take a leap forward.

However, the current position of New Jeans, which ignores all procedures, can only be interpreted as not considering or having no intention of making the mutual efforts necessary to maintain the contract from the beginning. Our law basically protects contracts that have been made, and handles disputes by holding them responsible when the contract reaches the termination stage. This means that the meaning is that the contract is protected until the contract is completely terminated, so New Jeans' current claim to terminate the contract is absurd.

In addition, we must be very careful in that the loss of contract validity through such unilateral contract termination claims can have a great impact on the overall trust relationship of the exclusive contract. The artist and the entertainment agency are not in a simple employment relationship, but work is carried out in a mutually cooperative relationship. According to the exclusive contract, the artist must do his best to cooperate with the agency's activities by demonstrating his talents and qualities, and the agency must support various activities so that the artist's talents and qualities can be fully demonstrated. However, when such a dispute arises, the claim that the exclusive contract can be terminated with just a declaration like this will have fatal consequences for the Korean popular culture and arts industry, which is not a short-term contract but a long-term contract of several years, and furthermore, has made investments since the trainee period. If anyone can terminate the contract with just a declaration, how can the validity of the exclusive contract be guaranteed, and who can invest based on such an uncertain contract? In this regard, the termination of the contract must be approached very carefully, and the issue of contract termination should be discussed within the premise of maintaining and supplementing the contract.

Therefore, the union hopes that Newgenes will withdraw its previous position and engage in dialogue with the company, and we sincerely hope that the dispute will be resolved smoothly and that it will not escalate into the worst situation.

In addition, we were able to confirm how much weakness there is in the current laws and regulations in maintaining stable contracts. Therefore, I hope that government ministries and other relevant parties can discuss from the beginning for the long-term development of the industry. For the continuous development of our popular culture and arts industry, we at Hanmaeyeon will never sit idly by and will continue to monitor the issue and do our best to respond actively. Thank you.