Recently, the first-instance judgment of the entrustment contract dispute between Shanghai Yihai Film and Television Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yihai Culture) and Cai Xukun was made public. According to the Judgment Documents Network, the court found that Cai Xukun did not maliciously breach the contract, and Cai Xukun was sentenced to pay the former boss 3 million liquidated damages.
It is worth noting that the publication time of this document has been nearly 9 months since the judgment time. Yihai Culture appealed to the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court after the first instance judgment.
Cai Xukun was sentenced to 3 million yuan in compensation in the first instance. The court determined that he was not a malicious breach of contract. The document showed that the plaintiff Yihai Company claimed that in November 2015, he signed a contract with the defendant Cai Xukun, stipulating that the plaintiff was the defendant’s exclusive plenipotent broker, and the contract term was until April 2023. If the defendant requests to terminate the contract, every year in advance, the plaintiff will need to pay the plaintiff an early termination compensation of RMB 3 million per year.
In June 2016, the plaintiff and the defendant signed a supplementary contract. If the defendant unilaterally proposes to terminate the contract, every year the termination of the contract, the plaintiff must pay 30 million yuan in advance compensation for early termination compensation.
In February 2017, the defendant sent a notice of termination of the contract to the plaintiff and filed a lawsuit with the court, demanding that the contract and supplementary agreement be terminated. Therefore, the plaintiff sued the court and demanded that the defendant be ordered to pay the plaintiff a termination compensation of 30 million yuan and a liquidated damages of 15 million yuan.
Defendant Cai XuBabaylanKun argued that the contract stipulates that the defendant unilaterally proposed that the defendant needs to pay compensation to the plaintiff if he unilaterally proposed to terminate the contract. The plaintiff paid a lot of energy and costs to cultivate the defendant. In fact, the plaintiff did not make effective investment in the training and promotion of the defendant. During the contract period, the defendant did not obtain any remuneration paid by the plaintiff, and the plaintiff claimed no basis. In addition, the amount of compensation proposed by the plaintiff was significantly inflated.
The first instance court held that the part of the 15 million breach of contract loss was a portrait authorization cooperation agreement signed by the plaintiff and the defendant during the termination dispute trial. The resulting termination compensation was caused by the plaintiff who should pay attention but did not pay attention to the risk that the cooperation agreement may face inability to perform. The defendant is now required to bear the termination loss.
Regarding the part of the termination compensation, when the contract and supplementary contract between the two parties are signed <a The defendant was underage and signed by the plaintiff and the defendant's mother Xu. The defendant has not yet formed a clear plan and estimate of his future development and achievements. The long performance period of the two contracts is actually not conducive to the defendant's own development and the creation of a stable, healthy and orderly environment in the performance industry. The uncertainty of achieving commercial returns has also increased accordingly. Therefore, the defendant terminated the contract early, which is reasonable, and it is not a malicious breach of Cinema. The plaintiff and the defendant agreed in the contract with high termination compensation, which does not comply with the principle of fairness and reason.
Finally, the court confirmed as appropriate based on the plaintiff’s publicity investment in the defendant, the defendant’s income standards, and the performance period. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks fixed termination compensation is RMB 3 million.
Previousref=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema said that the judgment date shown in the judicial documents is August 10, 2022. The document shows that if you are dissatisfied with this judgment, you may submit an appeal to this court within fifteen days from the date of delivery of the judgment, and submit a copy according to the number of the other party or representatives, and appeal to the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court.
According to Qichacha, Yihai Culture appealed to the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court after the first instance, and the court issued several court announcements.
The dispute between the two parties has been around for a long time. Cai Xukun is still underage. According to the Securities Times, the termination dispute between Cai Xukun and his former boss Yihai Culture can be traced back to 2015.
In 2015, Cai Xukun signed a contract with Haoshang Media (Hunan) Co., Ltd. for participating in the “Star Moving Asia”. During the recording of the program, due to the transfer of the program producer, Cai Xukun was told to transfer the contract by Babaylan, otherwise he would not be able to continue participating in the program. In order to continue to complete the program recording, Cai Xukun signed a brokerage contract with Yihai Culture on November 17, 2015, when Cai Xukun was 17 years old.
After the contract was signed, the two parties signed a supplementary contract in June 2016 to modify Cai Xukun’s termination compensation. For example, Cai Xukun’s unilateral termination compensation was changed from 8 million yuan to 80 million yuan, and the early termination compensation was changed from 3 million yuan per year to 30 million yuan per year.
In 2017, Cai Xukun filed a termination of the contract with Yihai Culture and filed a lawsuit. The main reason is that Yihai Culture unilaterally increased the contract liquidated damages and compensation at the same time, and also required Cai Xukun to bear the cost investment in his acting career activities and withdraw a high share of his acting activities income.
In addition, CaiXu Kun believes that Yihai Culture has not fulfilled the performance arts brokerage obligations agreed in the contract, has not fulfilled the artist’s brokerage affairs management and operation obligations, and has not made complete and reasonable plans for its acting career, so it is impossible to improve professional and stable support for the better development of its acting career.
However, Yihai Culture tells another story. According to his statement, on November 12, 2015, Komiks signed a brokerage contract and supplementary agreement with Cai Xukun, stipulating that he is Cai Xukun’s exclusive plenipotent broker, and the contract term is April 17, 2023.
After signing the contract, the company arranged for Cai Xukun to participate in the large-scale cultivation talent show “Star Asia”, and arranged for going to South Korea to receive artist training, release albums, etc., to help Cai Xukun develop from a middle school student to an artist officially debut.
In January 2017, Cinema, the company notified Cai Xukun to participate in the performance, but was rejected. Since then, Cai Xukun refused to participate in any activities arranged by the company. On February 10 of that year, Cai Xukun proposed to terminate the Brokerage Contract, and then filed a lawsuit with the court, demanding the revocation of the Brokerage Contract.
Yihai Culture does not agree to terminate the contract. In the counterclaim, Yihai’s cultural request ordered Cai Xukun to pay 50 million yuan in compensation for breach of contract, and paid 70% of all the acting income (including later advertising endorsement income) obtained by starring in the online drama and variety show “Idol Trainee” to the company.
On October 29, 2018, Jing’an Court made a judgment to terminate the brokerage contract and compensation agreement signed by both parties. However, regarding the compensation issues caused by the termination of the contract, the judgment stated that the two parties can negotiate on their own, and if they fail to reach the negotiation, they can claim the corresponding rights separately. This also became the origin of future disputes between the two parties.
2022CinemaIn November 2022, Yihai Culture published several Weibo posts in succession, explaining the litigation matters with Cai Xukun and revealing a number of expenditure evidence.
Yihai Culture said that after signing the contract with Cai Xukun in November 2015, the company invested a lot of money and resources to perform.Art training, image shaping and publicity and promotion, and its early termination of contracts have caused huge losses to the company.
The evidence posted by Yihai Culture includes Babaylan, including training contracts signed for trainees such as Cai Xukun and some training and even plastic surgery fees, as well as photos of the company’s promotional activities for Cai Xukun’s group, and the relevant materials have attracted great attention on Weibo.
In addition to going to court directly due to termination disputes, relevant legal documents show that in recent years, Yihai Culture has also sued Cai Xukun and his endorsed products and companies, including L’Oreal, Yangshengtang, VIVO, etc.
If he sued Cai Xukun, Cai Xukun Studio and VIVO Company, he believed that Cai Xukun and Cai Xukun Studio had cooperated with VIVO without the company’s consent, and agreed that Cai Xukun was the spokesperson for the vivox23 series mobile phones, and filmed a large number of advertisements, posters and other promotional materials.
Yihai Culture believes that its behavior infringes on its exclusive brokerage rights, constitutes unfair competition, seriously damages the legitimate rights and interests of Yihai Company, and causes significant economic losses to Yihai Company. However, most of these lawsuits ended with Yihai Culture’s withdrawal of the lawsuit.
For the first-instance judgment, many netizens congratulated Cai Xukun on winning the case and successfully terminated the contract↓
As well as netizens used this to warn young people who hoped to enter performing arts companies and MCN institutions↓
Source | Yangcheng Evening News·Yangcheng School Comprehensive Judgment Document Network, KomiksUpstream News, Securities Times, @Cai Xukun, Netizen Comments and other editors | Wu Xia