EXO-CBX Sues SM Executives For Alleged Fraud, Fueling Conflicts

On June 26th, INB100, the agency representing CBX, informed OSEN that a complaint was filed against SM Entertainment’s Co-CEOs Lee Sung-soo and Tak Young-joon at the Seongdong Police Station in Seoul for allegedly violating the Act on The Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (Fraud). This action was taken jointly by EXO-CBX and INB100 on June 25th.

The agency of CBX claimed that SM had agreed to distribute the planned, developed, and produced content created by the artists through a designated distributor, with a distribution fee of 5.5%. However, SM ultimately did not fulfill this agreement.

Furthermore, CBX’s side alleged that SM had unlawfully obtained profits by requesting 10% of the revenue generated from the members’ individual entertainment endeavors as royalties, despite not fulfilling their agreement.

Last June, CBX informed SM Entertainment of their decision to terminate their exclusive contracts through their legal representative. The trio stated that their requests for settlement data were not met and that they were being subjected to exploitative contracts. In response, SM Entertainment raised concerns of tampering and suggested that CBX may have been influenced by MC Mong, who serves as an internal director at Big Planet Made Entertainment. However, MC Mong has denied these accusations.

Following an agreement between SM and CBX, Baekhyun founded his own label INB100 in January of this year after his exclusive contract with SM ended. This allowed him to take control of his individual activities alongside Chen and Xiumin. However, tensions between the two sides resurfaced when CBX’s agency INB100 held a press conference and declared a conflict with SM.

As a result, SM filed a lawsuit against CBX, seeking to enforce their contracts. However, CBX retaliated by suing SM for unpaid settlement, resulting in an intense legal dispute between the two parties.