Three members of the popular K-pop group EXO -- Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin -- claimed Monday their agency SM Entertainment is making an "unfair" demand over revenue from their individual activities, reigniting their conflict with the K-pop powerhouse after a year. They alleged that the agency is unjustly demanding a 10 percent royalty from revenue of their individual activities without fulfilling its end of a behind-the-scenes deal made to resolve the conflict in June last year. During a press conference at a Seoul hotel, the trio's lawyer, Lee Jae-hak, said SM is violating the terms of the agreement that guaranteed a 5.
5 percent commission rate for album and music sales through INB100, the label representing their solo careers and activities as EXO-CBX, a subunit of the boy group. "SM Entertainment is failing to uphold the 5.5 percent commission rate and is instead demanding 10 percent of the artists' revenue from their personal activities, albums, concerts and commercials," Lee said.
The EXO members had renewed their contracts with SM but later notified the company of their intention to terminate the contracts last year. The reasons cited included the failure to provide proper accounting data. The trio subsequently filed an antitrust complaint with the Fair Trade Commission against the agency.
The conflict was temporarily resolved when both parties agreed to maintain the exclusive contracts with SM while allowing the members' individual activities to be independently managed.
