Seungri’s former ramen restaurant franchise has cut ties with him and Yuri Holdings.

On March 14, Aori Ramen’s company, Aori FNB, released a statement via their official Instagram. The statement read:

Hello, this is Aori Ramen’s company, Aori FNB.

To all the customers and store-owners who kept their faith in Aori Ramen throughout the recent series of events, we would first like to apologize for causing you concern.

Our head office has been reorganizing after Lee Seung Hyun (Seungri) stepped down from his CEO position due to his upcoming military enlistment. To ensure the stable business of our franchise stores, we hired a new management specialist and on March 7 we held a planning meeting with the store-owners and offered them compensation. Depending on the situation, we intend to offer further compensation to the store-owners later on.

In order to protect the brand of our franchise stores and Aori Ramen, we have decided to cut all ties with Seungri and Yuri Holdings and make a fresh start. We are currently in discussions to transfer management rights to a new partner who is knowledgeable about the food and beverage industry and can provide good leadership to our franchise stores.

The 43 Aori Ramen franchise stores are not all owned by our former CEO’s acquaintances and family. In order to minimize damages to the other stores, we have decided to close the stores that do have a connection to him.

Because of the extreme news, stores that have worked hard and have no connection to the news are suffering damages. Aori Ramen’s head office will do our best to make sure to minimize damages to those hardworking, innocent franchise store-owners.

We ask once again for the understanding of all the customers who have loved Aori Ramen and we will continue to work to improve our taste and quality.

On March 14, Seungri went to the police station for his second round of questioning in the investigation into whether he violated the law on the punishment of prostitution mediation.