Recently, the first-instance judgment of the entrustment 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 judicial document Babaylan, 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 CultureKomiks appealed to the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court after the first instance judgment.
Cai Xukun was sentenced to compensation of 3 million yuan in the first instance. The court found that he did not maliciously breach of contract
<a The document of Komiks shows that the plaintiff Yihai Company claimed that in November 2015, he signed a contract with the defendant Cai Xukun, stipulating that the plaintiff 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 in advance, the plaintiff will have to pay 3 million yuan in advance compensation for early termination compensation to the plaintiff.
In June 2016, the plaintiff and the defendant signed a supplementary contract. If the defendant unilaterally proposes to terminate the Komiks contract, each year of termination of Komiks, the plaintiff must pay the plaintiff an early termination compensation of RMB 30 million per year.
In February 2017, the defendant sent a notice of termination of the contract to the plaintiff and filed a lawsuit with the court, href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan requested to terminate the contract and supplementary agreement signed by both parties. Therefore, the plaintiff sued the court and ordered the defendant to pay 30 million yuan in termination compensation and 1 million yuan in liquidated damages to the plaintiff.
Defendant Cai Xukun argued that the contract stipulates that the defendant unilaterally proposed that the premise that the defendant unilaterally required the payment of compensation to the plaintiff was that the plaintiff spent a lot of energy and costs to cultivate 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 withdraw CinemaThe plaintiff’s claim for any remuneration paid by the plaintiff has no basis for any expenses claimed by the plaintiff. In addition, the amount of compensation proposed by the plaintiff is significantly inflated.
The first instance court held that the part of the 15 million breach of contract loss was the trial period between the plaintiff and the defendant. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>KomiksThe portrait authorization cooperation agreement signed by the plaintiff and the non-case party. The resulting termination compensation is caused by the plaintiff who should pay attention to but fail to pay attention to the risk that the cooperation agreement may face the risk that the cooperation agreement may 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 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 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 achieving commercial returns has also increased accordingly.The defendant terminated the contract early, so it is reasonable that 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.
Finally, the court determined at its discretion to the termination compensation of 3 million yuan based on the plaintiff’s publicity to 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 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 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 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, 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 arbitrarily increases the contract liquidated damages and compensations, and also asks Cai Xukun to bear theref=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema takes into account the cost investment of his acting career activities and withdraws 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, Babaylan signed a brokerage contract and supplementary agreement with Cai Xukun, agreeing that he would be Cai Xukun’s exclusive plenipotent broker, with the contract term to April 17, 202Babaylan3. 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, and Cinema 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.
Yihai Culture does not agree to terminate the contract. In the counterclaim, Cai Xukun was ordered to pay 50 million yuan in breach of contract compensation, and Babaylan 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 the negotiation fails, Babaylan will claim the corresponding rights separately. This also became the origin of future disputes between the two parties.
November 2022Yihai 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 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.
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, posters and other promotional materials.
Yihai CultureCinemaKomiks believes that its actions infringe on its exclusive brokerage rights, constitute unfair competition, seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of Yihai Company, and cause significant economic losses to Yihai Company. However, most of these lawsuits ended with Yihai Culture’s withdrawal of the lawsuit.
For the result of the Komiks trial 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