Daisy, a former member of K-pop girl group Momoland, got justice when she won a lawsuit she filed against her own agency, MLD Entertainment.
In a ruling, the Seoul Central District Court sided with Daisy and ordered MLD Entertainment to pay her 79.26 million won ($66,330).
Daisy, a former member of K-pop girl group Momoland, got justice when she won a lawsuit she filed against her own agency, MLD Entertainment.
In a ruling, the Seoul Central District Court sided with Daisy and ordered MLD Entertainment to pay her 79.26 million won ($66,330).
The court case stemmed from the audition program “Finding Momoland,” which aired on Mnet in July 2016 to select the members of Momoland. Daisy was not selected during the program but was later recruited by MLD Entertainment. She signed a contract with the agency in September 2016 and became a new member of Momoland.
As a result, MLD Entertainment deducted 66 million won ($55,251) from Daisy’s earnings, which was equivalent to 10 percent of the 660 million won ($552,510) production cost of “Finding Momoland.”
However, Daisy’s side protested this, saying it was unreasonable that the program’s production cost spent since April 2016 should be deducted from Daisy’s earnings since she signed the contract with MLD Entertainment only in September 2016, or five months after. Daisy sued MLD Entertainment to recover the cost.
"Unless otherwise specified, the contract takes effect from the date the contract is signed. The meaning of the phrase ‘pre-debut' in the contract also begins on the date of signing the exclusive contract. There's no clear evidence that this is a practice in the entertainment industry,” the court ruled.
In addition, the court ordered MLD Entertainment to pay Daisy an additional 13 million won ($10,885).
MLD Entertainment put Daisy on the back burner in March 2019 when it announced that Daisy and Taeha would not be part of Momoland’s album promotions for “Show Me” due to health and personal reasons.
Daisy asked MLD Entertainment to terminate her contract but the agency demanded 1.1 billion won ($920,660) from her in exchange for this. Taeha and Yeonwoo left Momoland in November 2019.
MLD Entertainment has filed an appeal to overturn the court’s ruling.