On July 22, Lai Kuan Lin's legal representative released a full-length statement detailing the reasons why the idol decided to request the nullification of his contract with Cube Entertainment.
Read the statement below:
"First, I am delivering a word of sincere apologies from Lai Kuan Lin himself, as he feels greatly apologetic toward his fans, as well as all those involved in the entertainment and broadcast industry, for causing concerns after the release of Cube Entertainment's damaging, one-sided news articles back on July 20.
Until now, Lai Kuan Lin wished to resolve his issues with Cube Entertainment internally through discussion and settlement, rather than to publicize the problems. However, Cube Entertainment has continued to deny any kind of settlement, arguing that they did nothing to violate Lai Kuan Lin's exclusive contract, spreading the one-sided news and falsely accusing the idol of currently "acting independently", which is not true. As a result, we have decided to release this official statement in order to clarify the details of this ongoing case.
On July 18, 2019, Lai Kuan Lin requested to nullify his contract with Cube Entertainment through our legal office, and as of today, we have submitted a legal request with the Seoul Central District Court to validate Lai Kuan Lin's contract nullification request. The reason for this request is that due to Cube Entertainment multiple violations of Lai Kuan Lin's exclusive contract, he has come to the conclusion that he cannot trust his company any longer.
On July 25, 2017, Cube Entertainment signed an exclusive contract with Lai Kuan Lin; a few months after around January of 2018, Cube Entertainment designated exclusive management rights over the entirety of Lai Kuan Lin's promotions in China to a third party known as Tazo Entertainment. As payment for this, Cube Entertainment received an amount over ten times larger than the contract payment that Lai Kuan Lin received from Cube. Lai Kuan Lin's parents never received any explanation regarding this contract, meaning they also never gave legal permission.
Lai Kuan Lin was only able to learn of the facts above in April of 2019, after wrapping up his promotions as a member of Wanna One in January of the same year.
On March 23, 2019, due to Lai Kuan Lin's scheduled appearance at the 'U&Cube Festival' in Japan, an overlap in schedules occurred with filming for a Chinese drama Lai Kuan Lin was appearing in at the time, resulting in tension. Ultimately, Lai Kuan Lin was unable to appear on a Chinese program for which he was under serious negotiations with, and later on, he was informed that this incident was cause for establishing an unfavorable relationship between him and Chinese broadcasting station Hunan TV. While hearing the explanation behind this incident, Lai Kuan Lin was informed of a Chinese contract he never knew existed from his manager in China.
Lai Kuan Lin was shocked to hear that the company he trusted in transferred over his own management rights to another company, and after serious consideration, he sent over documentation regarding this issue to our law office on June 21, 2019, seeking to correct Cube Entertainment's contract violation. Nonetheless, Cube Entertainment continued to claim that a document containing Lai Kuan Lin and Lai Kuan Lin's father's formal agreement in the form of a seal existed, arguing that there was no violation of the exclusive contract. Not only did Cube Entertainment refuse to carry out any of Lai Kuan Lin's request to correct the issues, they ignored all of his requests for settlement.
Still, Lai Kuan Lin and his father do not recall ever seeing proof of this formal seal that Cube Entertainment claimed to have, and they never gave agreement to the third party contract in the first place, nor did the idol and his father ever agree that the company had permission to recreate Lai Kuan Lin or his father's legal signatures for usage on any occasion; leading them to believe that the company may be involved in actions which more severely damage the trust established between them than simply signing over Lai Kuan Lin's management rights.
The above explanation is why Lai Kuan Lin unfortunately chose to demand the nullification of his contract, but without any attempt to explain their own position to the individual involved, Cube only chose to reveal selective parts of the entire case to the press and accused Lai Kuan Lin of "bringing up problems with no basis", damaging his image and character. This only further broke down the trust Lai Kuan Lin had toward Cube, and placed in a situation where the company has overtly refused any settlement, there was no choice but to submit a formal lawsuit.
Our legal office trusts that through the formal lawsuit, Lai Kuan Lin will be able to find out clearly the information he was kept from, and that the court will rule a fair and well-informed decision regarding this case. Furthermore, in order to keep his promise with his fans both in Korea and overseas, as well as his promise with representatives and staff involved in entertainment and broadcast, Lai Kuan Lin will do his best to carry out any and all schedules which were planned before the official submission of this lawsuit under normal conditions. We will do our best so that we can resolve this case fairly and return Lai Kuan Lin to fans as soon as possible."
These entertainment companies better stop trying to jerk these young people around. First Daniel now Lai Kuan Lin. I'm happy to see idols fight for fairness regarding their contracts. Just because idols were taken advantage of commonly throughout the years doesn't mean it has to continue. Good for him, his father and his legal representatives for telling their side of the story.
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