Fifty Fifty CEO files additional charges against producer

The CEO of Fifty Fifty’s agency, Oscar Jun, filed additional reports against the girl group’s producer for allegedly forging and using forged private documents as well as embezzlement. Attrakt CEO Jun said Friday afternoon that he filed ...

Girl group Fifty Fifty [NEWS1]

The CEO of Fifty Fifty’s agency, Oscar Jun, filed additional reports against the girl group’s producer for allegedly forging and using forged private documents as well as embezzlement.

Attrakt CEO Jun said Friday afternoon that he filed an additional report with Seoul Gangnam Police Station against Ahn Sung-il, CEO of production company The Givers.

“While organizing data sent by The Givers [to Attrakt] upon contract termination, an instance of embezzlement done without the agency’s consent was found,” Sojong Partners, the law firm representing Jun, said on Friday.

The Givers is a content management company that manages intellectual property (IP) as well as producing albums and managing groups. The company was an external vendor contracted by Attrakt to do production work for and manage the girl group. The two parties ended their production and management contract on May 31, and The Givers were only in charge of the group’s global promotion and public relations, according to the producing company.

Jun first filed a police report on June 28 against Ahn for allegedly deleting company data related to the quartet and acquiring copyrights for the hit track “Cupid” instead of the agency.

Attrakt said in June that outside parties had approached the group's members and talked them into breaking their existing contracts to sign new contracts with a different company.

While the agency pointed fingers at the group's distributor Warner Music Korea and The Givers for trying to "steal" the members away from Attrak, both companies denied such allegations.

All four members of the girl group — Aran, Keena, Sio and Saena — filed an injunction to suspend their contracts with Atrtrakt, citing that the company forced them to work through worsening health conditions in addition to unclear payment issues. The injunction was filed on June 19 to the Seoul Central District Court, and the first hearing on it began Wednesday.

Fifty Fifty's attorney said during the hearing on Wednesday that the "agency lacked capability," accusing Jun of malpractice and concluded that "members had lost the trust with Attrakt."

Attrakt's attorney reportedly said the agency provided the members with all financial and contract data they requested and that the miscommunication between the agency and the group's members resulted from an "outside party" tampering with the relationship between the two parties.

Should the court side with the members, they will be free to sign with different agencies until a higher court says otherwise.

It was also reported Friday by a local YouTube channel that the parents of the girl group had allegedly registered 60-plus trademark copyrights before they filed an injunction against its agency in June. The trademark registration requested the group and the members' names under different categories, ranging from copyright registration in bags, clothing and cosmetics. Fifty Fifty’s agency told local media that they had registered the relevant trademarks beforehand, giving them a likely advantage in the ownership.

To find out more about Fifty Fifty, visit Celeb Confirmed!

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]