News LOONA's agency loses 3.5 billion KRW lawsuit. (1 Viewer)

[Darkseid]

Original source: [단독]이달의 소녀 소속사 35억원 투자금 소송 패소 '빨간불'

Translated by Team Subbits.

LOONA's agency loses 3.5 billion KRW Investment Lawsuit

The agency of the girl group LOONA lost a 3.5 billion (~3 million USD) KRW investment lawsuit this month, which is expected to have a significant impact on the group's activities in the future.

According to a StarNews investigation from this Wednesday, LOONA's agency Blockberry Creative lost a lawsuit recently filed by Donuts, the company’s second-largest shareholder, and is to return the 3.5 billion KRW (~3 million USD) invested by Donuts.

According to the Seoul Central District Court's civil case ruling, Donuts invested 3.5 billion KRW in Polaris, the parent company of Blockberry Creative, but claimed that the agreed-upon contract, which included LOONA’s appearances in relation with Donuts' business, was not fulfilled. As a result, the court ruled that Polaris should return the entire investment as it violated the terms of the investment.

Donuts invested ~5.5 billion KRW (~4.6 million USD) in Blockberry Creative and Polaris, including the 3.5 billion KRW in the aforementioned investment, and reportedly suffered losses due to the breach of the contract with Blockberry Creative and Polaris.

Donuts does not know how the investment was spent, and is requesting permission to browse and duplicate accounting logs and other documents in order to learn the details. Under investment agreements, Donuts plans to exercise claims regarding LOONA so as to prevent the group's agency affiliation from being changed or transferred.
Donuts had previously filed a separate lawsuit against Polaris, seeking 360 million KRW in deposits for space leases (~300,000 USD).

It seems that the loss of the 3.5 billion KRW lawsuit could affect LOONA's future activities, as Blockberry Creative and Polaris must jointly return large sum of investment funds following the loss.

Meanwhile, LOONA, gaining huge popularity overseas, recently released a mini-album [#], and made a comeback with the title track "So What." The group has garnered great attention for being the first group that Lee Soo-man has produced for outside SM entertainment.

This just reeks of incompetence, always seems like 1 step forward 2 steps back for LOONA. It was so easy to avoid this lawsuit coz they only had to agree to some simple terms. Instead we have this.
Just another day for Loona. Get great hype and pre-order numbers through the roof? Not enough albums printed and ready to ship. Get a Lee Sooman collaboration? Follow that with a losing lawsuit worth $3 million USD.

Fuck sake, just change the management team or something, the girls deserve a lot better.

For more detailed discussion, go here.

 

[Darkseid]

Tags:

Spoiler

@la_mort_pour_vous @Skinnny @eclipsoul @umpheri @Chahee @Kiseki @wayvoutsold @OnlyCalB

 

[eclipsoul]

 

[Darkseid]

 

[yeji]

it’s beyond me how an agency can keep doing this especially when they got a gg which so much hype around them.

I am not surprised but I do want much better things for my girls

and what tag list did you use

 

[Belgizen]

So basically they're a company that doesn't know what they do but they have the money to keep themselves afloat?

 

[spicy_illusion]

I didn't know donuts could be so expensive and not be Krispy Creme? They must have eaten a lot of donuts for them to be pissed off and taken action.

On a serious note though, this is not good for Loona by any means. It's not fair on them.

 

[Darkseid]

it’s beyond me how an agency can keep doing this especially when they got a gg which so much hype around them.

I am not surprised but I do want much better things for my girls

and what tag list did you use

I tagged people in a hurry, mostly ones I saw on the Loona thread so

So basically they're a company that doesn't know what they do but they have the money to keep themselves afloat?

Yeah they have a lot of money but have no clue how to actually make more
And all they had to do was have the members appear on some livestream and promote some products or something, nothing too big. Whoever's in charge is a serial fuck-up artist

I didn't know donuts could be so expensive and not be Krispy Creme? They must have eaten a lot of donuts for them to be pissed off and taken action.

On a serious note though, this is not good for Loona by any means. It's not fair on them.

Yeah it's frustrating how there's always something halting their momentum just as things start to turn around, through no fault of the girls. The fanbase is loyal af, always outvoting bigger groups, streaming and topping iTunes in 56 countries, and willing to spend money on the physical albums which are never in stock

 

[Belgizen]

Yeah they have a lot of money but have no clue how to actually make more
And all they had to do was have the members appear on some livestream and promote some products or something, nothing too big. Whoever's in charge is a serial fuck-up artist

One day, their money will be gone...

 

[Ashla_K]

No surprise here, I knew they'd lose this lawsuit because it's clearly BBC/Polari's fault.
On the other hand, I really thought they wouldn't repeat the same mistake made with the printing of the last album but it seems someone wants to play dumb over and over again. Many groups would kill to have the amount of hype and loyal fanbase Loona has but I guess BBC has no plans to let them grow more.

 

[VillageIdiot]

There's incompetence and then there's just being dumb

 

[Ashla_K]

It feels like just yesterday that people were praising Blockberry for putting together such a successful and unique girl-group despite being such a small company and now you hear about all these missteps :\

There's no perfect company but on BBC's case this is becoming very annoying. They have the resources to make Loona a top group but for some reason, keep making dumb mistakes like breach contract with a sponsor on purpose.

 

[Darkseid]

It feels like just yesterday that people were praising Blockberry for putting together such a successful and unique girl-group despite being such a small company and now you hear about all these missteps :\

I wonder if Jaden Jeong's departure is partly to blame, I think he was heavily involved in the creation of the Loonaverse and the entire lore surrounding it. Rn, it's someone else in charge and it seems to be some clueless idiot
I'm preparing for another year long hiatus or even more already fuck this

One day, their money will be gone...

As long as Lee Jong Myeong is in charge, that day approaches faster than ever.
I ordered my album on Ktown, and it was already out of stock, first they said new stock will arrive on 11th, but now it's delayed to 21st.
And today, Choice Music LA emailed buyers a delay notice as well. I haven't seen this happen with any other GG.

No surprise here, I knew they'd lose this lawsuit because it's clearly BBC/Polari's fault.
On the other hand, I really thought they wouldn't repeat the same mistake made with the printing of the last album but it seems someone wants to play dumb over and over again. Many groups would kill to have the amount of hype and loyal fanbase Loona has but I guess BBC has no plans to let them grow more.

The most infuriating part is how easily avoidable all of this was. It takes some special kind of fuckup for things to turn this bad.

 

[blueberries]

Thankfully it's not that in euros or dollars..

Whole lawsuit seems pretty stupid, like why not lend them to model ur investors products once a while. It wouldn't have taken many workdays even and lot of idols do modeling. Idk what the inner workings of that were.

Blackpink and YG can't relate.

 

[Darkseid]

Thankfully it's not that in euros or dollars..

Whole lawsuit seems pretty stupid, like why not lend them to model ur investors products once a while. It wouldn't have taken many workdays even and lot of idols do modeling. Idk what the inner workings of that were.

Blackpink and YG can't relate.

That's the worst part. It was so simple, all they had to do was use some app, appear on some livestreams, that's it. They didn't have a comeback all year anyway so they could've fulfilled their obligations pretty easily.

BBC are their own worst enemy.

Also all the album issues will mess up any chances of a potential win again.

 

[Abeamus]

My opinion of BBC started changing ever since Loona were debuting as while the pre debut from ViViD all the way to Love4Eva was some of the best promoting in history, everything else hasn't lived up.

They debuted OT12 in a prerelease and their titles are very hit or miss compared to their pre debut and the year hiatus, stock problems and lawsuits are just extremely dumb.

BBC is quickly making a name for themselves as being incompetent to a point that even YG looks good.

 

[yeji]

I tagged people in a hurry, mostly ones I saw on the Loona thread so



Yeah they have a lot of money but have no clue how to actually make more
And all they had to do was have the members appear on some livestream and promote some products or something, nothing too big. Whoever's in charge is a serial fuck-up artist



Yeah it's frustrating how there's always something halting their momentum just as things start to turn around, through no fault of the girls. The fanbase is loyal af, always outvoting bigger groups, streaming and topping iTunes in 56 countries, and willing to spend money on the physical albums which are never in stock

so you flop to mention me who went by lalaloveloona here and still uses that name on twitter

 

[kinnie]

How are they gonna play LOONA dirty like this?
It's like they think their latest comeback is going to cover up their lack of brain cells somehow.
"Look how great they perform! Wha-what? I'm not in debt now wym? Omg, look at them go!"
Bish, we see right through you.
I feel really bad for LOONA. It's not even their fault dammit.

 

[spicy_illusion]

So what happens now? Are they going back to square one?
Because if they now don't have any investment, they can't really make Loona as big as they can do, right?
So does that mean the whole Loonaverse story may be over?

 

[Evergreen]

When you take the award of the dumbest company effortlessly.