On February 22 KST, CT Planning Limited, founded by Lee Soo Man, released a press statement to refute accusations that the company has been used by Lee Soo Man for embezzlement.
CEO Kim Han Gu of CT Planning stated on this day, "Due to recent rumors being circulated online, the brand image of CTP has suffered significant damage, thus the company makes the following statement in order to protect its own legal rights and interests."
CEO Kim continued, "Grounded in the vision, 'To pursue the realization of Asia's cultural market taking its place at the center of the world's cultural market,' CTP is an investment company dealing with global creative project planning and overseas creative producing. It was founded and registered in Hong Kong, and a subsidiary has since been set up in Beijing."
CTP then stated, "Ever since the company's founding, CTP, as well as producer Lee Soo Man, has strictly followed all regulations and procedures pertaining to the laws of each country where branches are registered; contrary to the false claims made by some accusers, this statement firmly asserts that CTP has made all tax payments through proper procedure."
Previously, SM Entertainment's co-CEO Lee Sung Soo accused CT Planning of being an overseas version of LIKE Planning, or a company which allowed Lee Soo Man to evade taxes for producing work overseas.
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The issue was never about following foreign tax laws, it was about taking a cut of the sales before profits were distributed which they couldn't do if they set up the company in Korea. That's why SM the company had to pay a penalty for a cut of sales going directly to CTP. That's the whole reason behind setting up this "investment" firm in Hong Kong and China. Essentially LSM was paying himself by using his power as major shareholder of SM to pay his other private company CTP. It might technically be legal but it is morally wrong to pay yourself and leave less for other shareholders, your artists and employees at SM who work weekends and overtime.
The thing about paying CTP or LikePlanning is that it wasn't a unified decision by other shareholders of SM, it was done at the direction of LSM for LSM at the expense of SM which is why the other shareholders threatened LSS to change these practices or else they would go public with this information. When LSS confronted LSM about this, LSM told him that he needed to manipulate Q1 performances to be bad and push SM idols' comeback (namely aespa) to Q2 and credit the success to him in order to persuade the other shareholders than he is essential (LSS released the audio of this conversation with LSM in his YouTube video).
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