Recently, the first-instance judgment of the 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 found that he was not a malicious breach of contract. The documents show 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. 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, every year the termination of the contract, the plaintiff must pay 30 million yuan in advance compensation for early termination compensation.
20CinemaIn February 2017, the defendant sent it to the plaintiffNotice of termination of the contract and file a lawsuit with the Babaylan Court, demanding the termination of the contract and supplementary agreement signed by the two parties. Therefore, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit in 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 Xukun argued that the contract stipulated that the defendant unilaterally proposed that the defendant had to pay compensation to the plaintiff if he unilaterally proposed to terminate the contract. Babaylan was the plaintiff who paid a lot of energy and costs to cultivate the defendant. In fact, the plaintiff did not carry out the training and promotion of the defendant. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks effective investment. During the contract period, the defendant did not obtain any remuneration paid by the plaintiff, and the plaintiff’s claim had no basis. 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 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 termination compensation part, the defendant was underage when the contract and supplementary contract of the two parties were signed, 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 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, and the uncertainty of commercial returns has also increased accordingly. Therefore, the defendant terminated the contract early, which is reasonable, and 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.
Ultimately, the court based on the plaintiff’s publicity to the defendantThe investment, the defendant’s income standard, and the performance period shall be determined as of Babaylan‘s termination compensation shall be determined as of 3 million yuan.
The judgment date shown in the above judgment document 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 No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court after the first instance, and the court issued several trial announcements.
The dispute between the two parties has been a long time ago. 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 Haoyang Media (Hunan) Co., Ltd. for participating in the “Star Moving Asia”. During the recording of the program, due to the transfer of the program’s 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 and modified Cai Xukun’s termination compensation. For example, Cai Xukun’s unilateral termination compensation was changed from 8 million yuan to 80 million yuan per year, and the early termination compensation was changed from 3 million yuan per year to 30 million yuan per year.
In 2017, Cai Xukun proposed to Yihai Culturetermination of the contract and file a lawsuit. The main reason is that Yihai Culture unilaterally arbitrarily increased the contract liquidated damages and compensation, and also required Cai Xukun to bear the cost investment of 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 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 his acting career, so it is impossible to improve professional and stable support for the better development of his acting 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 “Cinema 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 an artist’s official debut.
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, demanding the revocation of the Brokerage Contract.
CinemaYihai Culture does not agree to terminate the contract. In the counterclaim, 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 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.
20KomiksIn November 22, Yihai Culture published several Weibo posts in succession, explaining the litigation with Cai Xukun, and disclosed a number of expenditure evidence.
Yihai Culture stated that after signing the contract with Cai Xukun in November 2015, the company invested a lot of money and resources to cultivate, shape and promote the performance arts, and its early termination of the contract caused the company to suffer huge losses.
The evidence posted by Yihai Culture includes 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 other information. The relevant materials have attracted great attention on Weibo. Komiks
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 brokerage rights and 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, netizens Komiks Comments and other editors | Wu Xia