Active as dedicated manager since JYJ era
Trial resumes after 4 months... Park absent
The lawsuit for damages filed by actor Park Yoochun's former manager has resumed after four months.
According to Newsis on the 8th, the 14th Civil Division of the Seoul Eastern District Court (Chief Judge Park Yeonju) held a hearing on Park's damages claim case on the 6th.
Singer and actor Park Yoochun is answering questions from the press as he leaves Suwon Detention Center in Paldal-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do on July 2, 2019. [Photo by Yonhap News]
Park did not appear in court on this day, following the hearing held on November 8 last year. While criminal trials require the parties to attend, civil lawsuits do not have such an obligation.
The plaintiff, Park's former manager Kim, submitted the grounds for the lawsuit to the court through his attorney. Kim claims that Park breached the exclusive contract with Riciello due to a double contract, causing him not to receive the promised salary of about 600 million won and that he was unfairly dismissed from his position as CEO.
Kim's side stated, "While managing operations as the CEO of Riciello, I worked to resolve Park Yoochun's mistakes and generate profits," adding, "I even had to resort to irregular methods such as settling accounts under family names to prevent Park Yoochun from evading taxes or repaying debts."
Kim had been Park's dedicated manager since the JYJ days, and after the drug scandal and the end of the contract with the agency, he and Park established Riciello independently in 2020.
However, in 2021, the relationship between Kim and Park deteriorated as Park claimed he did not receive proper settlements from Riciello.
Riciello refuted this, stating that profits were settled normally and claimed that Park had signed a double contract with a Japanese agency.
Subsequently, the conflict escalated when Park Yoochun's mother, the major shareholder of Riciello, held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting to dismiss Kim from the CEO position.
Kim filed for a provisional injunction to prohibit the resolution to dismiss him at the extraordinary shareholders' meeting, but the court dismissed it, resulting in his removal from the CEO position at Riciello.
Kim's side argues that Park Yoochun promised a salary of 100 million won per year when proposing the CEO position at Riciello, but due to the unfair termination of the exclusive contract, he did not receive the salary he was supposed to get as CEO from March 1, 2021, to December 31, 2026, claiming damages amounting to 569.5 million won.
Park Yoochun has not made any particular statement regarding this matter. The next hearing will be held at the Seoul Eastern District Court on the 27th.
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