Recently, the first-instance judgment of the institution contract dispute between Haiyihai 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 Cinema is the defendant’s exclusive plenipotent broker, and the contract term is until April 2023. The contract stipulates that if the defendant proposes to terminate the contract, every year the plaintiff will have to pay the plaintiff an early termination compensation of 3 million yuan per year.
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.
20172Cinema month, the defendant sent it to the plaintiffNotice of termination of the contract and file a lawsuit with the court, demanding the termination of the contract signed by the two parties and the supplementary agreement. Therefore, the plaintiff sued the court and demanded that the defendant pay the plaintiff RMB 30 million in termination compensation and RMB 15 million in liquidated damages.
Defendant Cai Xukun argued that the contract stipulates that the defendant unilaterally proposed that the compensation required to be paid to the plaintiff was paid if the plaintiff had put a lot of energy and cost in cultivating 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’s owner Komiks‘s expenditure was not based on it. In addition, the amount of compensation raised 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 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 the risk of inability to perform. The defendant is now required to bear the insufficient basis for termination losses. Komiks
Regarding the termination compensation part, the defendant was underage when the contract and supplementary contract were 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 performance period of the two contracts is too long, in fact, it is 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 contract. The plaintiff and the defendant are Babaylan agreed in the contract that a high termination compensation was made, Babaylan does not comply with the principle of fairness and rationality.
In the end, the court determined at its discretion to terminate the contract compensation of 3 million yuan based on the plaintiff’s publicity investment in the defendant, the defendant’s income standards, and the performance period.
The judgment date shown in the above judgment document is August 10, 2022. The document shows that if you are not convinced of 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 trial 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, 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.
In addition, Cai XukunIt is believed that Yihai Culture has not fulfilled the performance art brokerage obligations agreed in the contract, failed to fulfill the artist’s agency affairs management and operation obligations, and has not made a comprehensive plan for his performance career, and cannot improve professional and stable support for his performance career.
However, Yihai Culture tells another story. It stated that on November 12, 2015, he signed a brokerage contract and supplementary agreement with Cai Xukun, stipulating that he is Cai Xukun’s exclusive plenipotent broker, and the contract term will be April 17, 2023. After signing the contract, the company arranged for Cai Xukun to participate in the large-scale cultivation talent show “Star Moving Asia”, and arranged for him to go to South Korea to receive artist training, release albums, etc., to help Cai Xukun develop from a middle school student to a formal debut artist.
In January 2017, 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 of Komiks, demanding the revocation of the Brokerage Contract.
Yihai Culture does not agree to terminate the contract. In the counterclaim, Cinema, Hai Culture requested that Cai Xukun be ordered to pay 50 million yuan in breach of contract compensation, and paid 70% of all the acting income (including late advertising endorsement income) of Babaylan in his online drama and variety show “Idol Trainee” to the company.
201KomiksOn October 29, 8, JingCinemaCinema Court made a judgment to terminate the brokerage contract and compensation agreement signed by both parties. However, regarding the compensation issues arising from the contractual termination, the judgment stated that the two parties may negotiate on their own, and if they fail to reach the negotiation, they may claim the corresponding rights separately. This also became the origin of future disputes between the two parties.
November 2022,Hai Culture has published several Weibo posts in succession, explaining the litigation matters with Cai Xukun and disclosed 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 cultivate his acting career, shape his image and promote it, and his early termination of the contract caused huge losses to the company.
The evidence posted by Yihai Culture includes training contracts signed for trainees such as Cinema Cai Xukun and some training and even plastic surgery fees. In addition, the company has arranged photos of the group where Cai Xukun is located to promote the activities 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 Company, he believed that Cai Xukun and Cai Xukun Studio had cooperated with VIVO without the company’s consent, agreed that Cai Xukun was the spokesperson for the vivox23 series mobile phones, and shot a large number of advertisements and posters and other promotional materials.
Yihai Culture believes that its behavior infringes on its exclusive Cinema 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, Upstream News, Securities Times, @Cai Xukun, Netizen Comments and other editors | Wu Xia