CEMA denies Blockberry’s attempts to ban Chuu’s entertainment activities, could have implications for other members
While Chuu secured an early win of getting an injunction in her contract battle against Blockberry Creative, the lawsuit is still ongoing. However, Chuu reportedly scored another win after it was recently ruled that there were insufficient grounds to say BY4M Studio tampered and rejected Blockberry’s claim to have Chuu entertainment activities banned. According to an industry official on the 4th, CEMA judged that “there is insufficient grounds” for Blockberry’s claim against Chuu regarding having double contracts with BY4M Studio (hereafter “BY4M”).Further, it emphasized that this was a matter to be determined in the main lawsuit currently in process within the legal system, not by CEMA. While tampering was alleged, and a request to ban her activities was filed back in December, CEMA has said there was no evidence for that. However, it is reported that CEMA has not recognized that there was advance contact between Chuu and BY4M, as claimed by Blockberry. That is to say, it determined that there was no evidence to confirm this allegation.Additionally, CEMA is said to have considered the double contracting emphasized once again by Blockberry to be a matter that should be sorted out legally, and taken a circumspect position. It should be noted that CEMA generally punted the core of the decision to the legal system, despite it being a positive sign that Chuu’s activities won’t be banned and that she has scored another win. Also, BY4M has said they will accept CEMA’s advice of not signing any other LOONA members. As far as Blockberry goes, they seem to deny the ruling but say they respect it. Regarding this, a senior Blockberry official said on a phone interview with Star News, “Unless we raise an objection to this point from our side, I don’t think there will be anything further to discuss on this issue.” They added, “Everyone in the know is aware that BY4M attempted to sign her to a contract. Advance contact can mean many things, and I think they’ve made this decision without a clear standard, and also BY4M seems to have changed their position. The core issue has been clouded.”In particular, they said, “You can still look up and find press articles stating that BY4M and Chuu signed a contract. Just from those articles it’s possible to infer the timing when the two sides contacted each other, or whether or not they had contact at all, and there are some things that are hard to understand about this.” But they replied, “We respect CEMA’s decision.” Of course, the contracts and disputes with other LOONA members and with Universal Music Japan‘s own issue are still at large, so they have a lot on their plate. On the other hand, regarding the issue related to new contracts for the other LOONA members, this official said “We have not decided yet. In some ways it wouldn’t be easy to obtain a favorable outcome if we were to pursue legal action, they have not filed for a contract termination, and we believe we’ll have an answer as to Universal Japan’s response within 1-2 weeks too. First of all the contract is currently valid, and we are monitoring the situation while negotiating with the members.” They added that “Rather than trying to block their activities, we are trying to have them maintain LOONA as a team, so with things like mediation petitions, at this time we are thinking deeply about the direction to move in.” So far so good for Chuu and all signs point in her direction, but at the end of the day, all of this is preliminary and the final lawsuit decision is going to be what matters most. It’s going to be a while more before that gets resolved. Arguably just as or more interesting is that this means the other four members will likely be able to win their entertainment activity bans as well, which is important since they’ve already signed with Modhaus and seem to be hard at work already. Meanwhile, Universal Music Japan is looming for all 12 members as they have a separate contract that they all have to deal with.
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While Chuu secured an early win of getting an injunction in her contract battle against Blockberry Creative, the lawsuit is still ongoing. However, Chuu reportedly scored another win after it was recently ruled that there were insufficient grounds to say BY4M Studio tampered and rejected Blockberry’s claim to have Chuu entertainment activities banned.
According to an industry official on the 4th, CEMA judged that “there is insufficient grounds” for Blockberry’s claim against Chuu regarding having double contracts with BY4M Studio (hereafter “BY4M”).
Further, it emphasized that this was a matter to be determined in the main lawsuit currently in process within the legal system, not by CEMA.
While tampering was alleged, and a request to ban her activities was filed back in December, CEMA has said there was no evidence for that.
However, it is reported that CEMA has not recognized that there was advance contact between Chuu and BY4M, as claimed by Blockberry. That is to say, it determined that there was no evidence to confirm this allegation.
Additionally, CEMA is said to have considered the double contracting emphasized once again by Blockberry to be a matter that should be sorted out legally, and taken a circumspect position.
It should be noted that CEMA generally punted the core of the decision to the legal system, despite it being a positive sign that Chuu’s activities won’t be banned and that she has scored another win. Also, BY4M has said they will accept CEMA’s advice of not signing any other LOONA members.
As far as Blockberry goes, they seem to deny the ruling but say they respect it.
Regarding this, a senior Blockberry official said on a phone interview with Star News, “Unless we raise an objection to this point from our side, I don’t think there will be anything further to discuss on this issue.” They added, “Everyone in the know is aware that BY4M attempted to sign her to a contract. Advance contact can mean many things, and I think they’ve made this decision without a clear standard, and also BY4M seems to have changed their position. The core issue has been clouded.”
In particular, they said, “You can still look up and find press articles stating that BY4M and Chuu signed a contract. Just from those articles it’s possible to infer the timing when the two sides contacted each other, or whether or not they had contact at all, and there are some things that are hard to understand about this.” But they replied, “We respect CEMA’s decision.”
Of course, the contracts and disputes with other LOONA members and with Universal Music Japan‘s own issue are still at large, so they have a lot on their plate.
On the other hand, regarding the issue related to new contracts for the other LOONA members, this official said “We have not decided yet. In some ways it wouldn’t be easy to obtain a favorable outcome if we were to pursue legal action, they have not filed for a contract termination, and we believe we’ll have an answer as to Universal Japan’s response within 1-2 weeks too. First of all the contract is currently valid, and we are monitoring the situation while negotiating with the members.” They added that “Rather than trying to block their activities, we are trying to have them maintain LOONA as a team, so with things like mediation petitions, at this time we are thinking deeply about the direction to move in.”
So far so good for Chuu and all signs point in her direction, but at the end of the day, all of this is preliminary and the final lawsuit decision is going to be what matters most. It’s going to be a while more before that gets resolved.
Arguably just as or more interesting is that this means the other four members will likely be able to win their entertainment activity bans as well, which is important since they’ve already signed with Modhaus and seem to be hard at work already. Meanwhile, Universal Music Japan is looming for all 12 members as they have a separate contract that they all have to deal with.
