JYJ Wins Avex Suit

K-pop trio JYJ has won its lawsuit against Japanese record company and media giant Avex.

In 2011 the group and its management sued Avex, which handles its Japanese activities, for interfering with JYJ’s own promotions in Japan.

The verdict in the case was delivered Jan. 18 with the Tokyo District Court ruling in favor of JYJ and compelling Avex to pay C-JES Entertainment, the group’s Korean management company, 660 million yen ($7.3 million) in damages. More significantly, Avex is not allowed to “restrict” JYJ’s activities in Japan.

The three members of JYJ used to be in the popular boy band TVXQ, but quit the group in 2009 over a contractual dispute with TVXQ’s Korean talent agency, SM Entertainment.

After forming JYJ, the three signed a contract with Avex in Feb. 2010 to handle its affairs in the Japanese market, but later that year Avex questioned C-JES’s alleged links to underworld figures and suspended JYJ’s Japanese activities indefinitely.

Shortly thereafter, Avex made a deal with SM Entertainment to support its roster of K-pop artists in Japan, including what was left of TVXQ.

As Avex was no longer helping JYJ promote its activities in Japan, the group made its own plans for a charity concert in June 2011 to help survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but Avex filed suit to prevent the concert from taking place, saying that Avex had exclusive rights to such promotional events.