Son Heung-min wins legal dispute against former agency

Son Heung-min, right, with his father Son Woong-jung [SUO BOOKS]

Son Heung-min has won a legal dispute against his former management company.

Seoul Central District Court ruled on Feb. 1 that Son Heung-min acted legally when he parted ways with his former management company Sports United, now ICM Stella Korea, in 2019.

However, the court ruled in a lawsuit brought by the CEO of ICM Stella Korea Jang Ki-young that Son & Football Limited do have to pay 247 million won ($197,000) to ICM as a percentage of earnings from advertising contracts in 2019.

The payment is 28 percent of what ICM originally requested.

A separate request from ICM for damages worth 1.8 billion won was rejected.

Son & Football Limited is a management company run by Son Heung-min’s father, Son Woong-jung.

ICM Stella Korea signed a management contract with Son Heung-min in 2008 when he was in Hamburg, Germany. Son Heung-min left the agency in 2019, although CEO Jang argued at the time that his departure was in breach of contract.

Son Heung-min terminated his contract after a disagreement with Jang over the direction of the business in 2019, and particularly the use of his name and image in an investor meeting with a larger company that Jang was seeking to merge with.

“I said I only want to play football and have no greed in terms of money, but my face was included on the materials used in the briefing and there was also a business proposal,” Son Heung-min said in an email sent to Jang on Nov. 21, 2019 that was filed as evidence in the court hearing.

Jang filed a lawsuit against Son Heung-min, saying that his decision to leave the agency was a brief of an existing exclusivity contract, which Jang said Son signed in July 2018.

After Son Heung-min sent an email in which he said that his relationship with Jang was over on Nov. 21, 2019, Jang said in response, “There is a contract.”

The Korean football star refuted the claim the following day by, saying: “I never signed that contract, neither did my dad, so isn’t that a crime?”

Jang filed the 2018 contract as evidence in court and two handwriting analysts were called in to review the signature's of Son Heung-min and his father on the document. One of the experts reported that he believed the signatures were authentic, while the other said that two of the three signatures belonging to Son Heung-min looked unnatural and therefore could be fake.

The court dismissed the damages claim on the basis that there is not conclusive evidence that Son Heung-min did sign the 2018 contract. Jang's decision to seek a merger between his company and a larger entertainment company was also ruled as changing the nature of the business to the extent that it could have adversely impacted Son's career, making his termination of the contract legal.

The court based the decision on a Supreme Court ruling in 2019 that forcing somebody to work with an agent that they no longer trust is an invasion of their personal rights.

The court did acknowledge that there was an agreement under which Son Heung-min had to pay 10 percent of his earnings from advertising deals to Jang from 2008 to 2019, and it was due to that agreement that Son & Football Limited do have to pay 247 million won for the four 2019 ads.

KIM JEONG-YEON [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]