Recently, the first instance verdict of the entrusted 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 Document Network, the court found that Cai Xukun did not breach the contract by maliciously, and Cai Xukun was sentenced to pay the former boss 3 million liquidated damages.
It is worth noting that the time of publication of this document has been nearly 9 months since the time of the judgment. 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, agreeing that the plaintiff was the defendant’s exclusive plenipotent broker, and the contract term was until April 2023. The contract stipulates that if the defendant proposes to terminate the contract, each termination of Komiks will be paid to the plaintiff Cinema for early termination compensation of 3 million yuan per year for each termination of Komiks the year before.
In June 2016, the plaintiff and the defendant signed a supplementary contract. If the defendant unilaterally proposes to terminate the contract, the plaintiff will have to pay the early termination compensation of RMB 300,000 per year for every year of termination.
In February 2017, the defendant sent a notice of termination of the contract to the plaintiff and filed a lawsuit with the court, demanding the termination of the contract and supplementary agreement signed by both parties. Therefore, the plaintiff sued the court and demanded that the defendant pay the plaintiff 30 million yuan in termination compensation and 15 million yuan in liquidated damages.
Defendant Cai Xukun argued that the contract stipulated that the defendant unilaterally proposed to terminate the contract and needed to pay the plaintiff <a The premise of compensation is that the plaintiff has put a lot of energy and costs into cultivating the defendant. In fact, the plaintiff has not made 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 is obviously 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 between the plaintiff and the defendant. 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 might face the risk that the cooperation agreement could not be performed. The defendant is now required to bear the insufficient basis for termination losses.
Regarding the part of the termination compensation, the defendant was underage when the contract and supplementary contract were signed by the two parties, and the plaintiff and the defendant’s mother Xu signed it. The defendant has not yet formed a clear plan and estimate of his future development and achievements. The performance period of the two contracts is too long, in fact, not conducive to the defendant’s own development and the creation of a stable, healthy and stable performance industry in the performance industry. In the environment of Komiks, the uncertainty of achieving commercial returns has also increased accordingly. Therefore, the defendant terminated the contract early, which is reasonable. It is not a malicious breach of contract. The agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant in the contract stipulates a high amount of termination compensation, which does not comply with the principle of fairness and reason. In the end, the court based on the plaintiff’s publicity investment in the defendant, the defendant’s income standards, and the performance of the contract. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan limit, the termination compensation is determined at the discretion of RMB 3 million.
The judgment date shown in the above judgment is August 10, 2022. The document shows that if you are not satisfied with this judgment, you can reach ten from the date of delivery of the judgment.Within five days, submit an appeal to this court, 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 of Komiks, and the court issued several trial announcements.
The origin of the dispute between the two partiesBabaylanWhen signing the contract for a long time, Cai Xukun is 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, otherwise he would not be able to continue participating in the program. In order to continue to complete the program recording, on November 17, 2015, Cai Xukun signed a brokerage contract with Yihai Culture, when Cai Xukun was 17 years old.
After the contract was signed, the two parties signed a supplementary contract in June 2016 and modified Cai Xukun’s termination compensation. For example, Cai Xukun’s unilateral termination compensation was changed from 800 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, Cai Xukun believes that Yihai Culture has not fulfilled the performance agency obligations agreed in the contract. Komiks, Cinema has not fulfilled its obligation to manage and operate the artist’s agency affairs, has not made complete and reasonable plans for his acting career, and has not improved professional and stable support for the better development of his acting career.
However, Yihai Culture tells another story. He said that on November 12, 2015, he signed a brokerage contract and supplementary agreement with Cai Xukun, agreeing that he is Cai Xukun’s exclusive full-ownership agent, and the contract period is until April 17, 2023.
After signing the contract, the company arranged for Cai Xukun to participate in the large-scale cultivation talent show “Star Move Asia”, and arranged to go to South Korea to receive artist training, release albums, etc. to help Cai CinemaXuBabaylanKun developed from a middle school student to a formal debut artist.
CinemaIn January 2017, the company notified Cai Xukun to participate in the performance, but was rejected. After that, Cai Xukun refused to participate in any activities arranged by the company. On February 10 of that year, Cai Xukun proposed to terminate the “Brandministrative Contract”, and then went to the law. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks Court filed a lawsuit, demanding the revocation of the brokerage contract.
Yihai Culture did not agree to terminate the contract. In the counterclaim, Yihai Culture asked to order Cai Xukun to pay 50 million yuan in compensation for breach of contract, and to give all the performance income he earned from starring in the online drama and variety show “Idol Trainee” (including late advertising endorsement collection Cinema) paid 70% of 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 negotiate, they can claim corresponding rights separately. This also became the origin of the future dispute between the two parties. In November 2022, Yihai Culture published several Weibo posts in succession, explaining the litigation matters with Cai Xukun, and Babaylan disclosed a number of expenditure evidence.
Yihai Culture ListBabaylan said that after signing the contract with Cai Xukun in November 2015, the company invested a lot of money and resources to train him in performing arts.The company suffered huge losses due to its early termination of contracts, image shaping and promotion.
YihaiBabaylanThe evidence posted by Cinema includes training contracts signed for trainees such as Cai Xukun and some training and even plastic surgery fees. In addition, there are photos of the company’s promotional activities for Cai Xukun’s group, and other information. 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, he believed that Babaylan was the one who 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 and 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 termination↓
As well as netizens used this to warn young people who hoped to enter the performing arts companies and KomiksMCN institutions↓
Source | Yangcheng Evening News·Yangcheng School Comprehensive Judgment Document Network, Upstream News, Securities Times, @Cai Xukun, Netizen Comments and other editors | Wu Xia