SM Entertainment refutes claims by EXO’s Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen

K-pop agency SM Entertainment has addressed the claims made by the legal representative of EXO members Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen. Earlier today, the trio had notified the company that they would be terminating their contracts due to “mistreatment and unfair contract terms”.

In their original statement, through legal representative and lawyer Lee Jae-hak, the three EXO members alleged that SM Entertainment had repeatedly failed to furnish the three K-pop idols with payment data over the past 12 to 13 years. Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen also claimed that the agency was “perpetrating extremely unjust use of power” in order to extend the artists’ contracts to over 17 years.

SM Entertainment has since refuted the claims made by Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen’s legal representative in a new statement to XportsNews, as translated by Soompi. On the issue of payment data, the K-pop agency claimed that “artists can check the basis for settlements at any time, and they have not brought up any issues with this process over the years”.

“We then explained several times that the artists can view the entirety of the settlement reports […] together with experts such as their legal representative or an accountant and can review them in detail at any time,” SM Entertainment added. It also claimed that the three EXO members’ legal representative did not express an intent to view the reports, while alleging that he “also did not promise to not provide the reports to external parties”.

“Provision of copies of our artists’ settlement reports to external parties is an issue that we cannot simply turn a blind eye to,” SM Entertainment said. “For example, if the various detailed activities provided as basis for settlement are leaked to external parties, the other EXO members excluding the three artists can receive unjust harm.”

SM Entertainment also refuted claims that it had used its “power” in order to extend the contacts of Baekhyun, Xiumin and Chen. SM Entertainment alleged that seven members of EXO had signed new contracts with the agency in December 2022 “with the help of a lawyer from a large law firm”, following a year and a half discussion.

“During the process of discussing the contract renewals […] we went through the process of coordinating each party’s opinions,” SM Entertainment said in its statement. “For about a month from mid-November 2022, amendments were exchanged with the member’s legal representatives a total of eight times, and we completed our discussions as we went over in detail each and every word in the exclusive contracts.”

“Despite this situation, the artists’ newly appointed representative suddenly changed their position and insisted that they cannot accept that the new exclusive contracts are valid,” SM Entertainment added. In this segment, the agency also mentioned the successful contract renewals of other groups under the company, including Girls’ Generation, TVXQ and Super Junior.

The K-pop agency ended its statement saying that its “biggest goal is to protect EXO […] and to protect all of our agency’s artists”. It added: “To this end, we will take strong action against external forces that try to delude artists with unreasonable financial temptations, flattery, and groundless rumours to collapse the team itself.”