The four-member South Korean girl group Wa$$up is making big news as their members Nada, Jinju and Dain have filed lawsuit with agency Mafia records, calling for termination of their contacts with the agency.
Although the musical group has been with the label from past four years, the three members of the group have decided to terminate their contract. On behalf of the three members, Nada addressed the press while at the same time Hong Sung Yong spoke from the behalf of Mafis Records.
Speaking on the behalf of Mafia Records, Hong Sung Yong said: "It is very unfortunate that Nada, Jinji and Dain have decided to submit a contract dismissal and leave Wa$$up and the Mafia Records family. With them leaving, Wa$$up will be composed of four members: Sujin, Jiae, Wooju and Nari. They had all been preparing for their comeback tirelessly and to have an issue come down like this is so unfortunate. Wa$$up was gearing towards a March comeback along with Nada and the other members. We had finished recording two new songs, prepared the album's thematic direction and were near completion for the upcoming comeback. I feel very sorry for the remaining members to have such bad news when we were almost done."
Strongly contradicting Hong, Nada gave an official statement, clarifying the reason of their contract termination and filing of lawsuit. The full statement read:
"I did not file the lawsuit because of money. It's not because of financial reasons. People seem to think that I am trying to terminate my contract because I gained some popularity with Unpretty Rapstar 3 but that's far from the truth. I asked for financial statements before I even went on that show along with every member of Wa$$up. If I was looking out for my interests, I would not have filed a joint lawsuit with Jinju and Dain.
Every time I asked for the statements, the company would tell me the company was in a bad situation and I trusted them to show them to me later. They were my company so I believed them and patiently waited. The reason I wanted the financial statements was because I wanted to see if the expenses and earnings were being calculated correctly in accordance to our original contracts. I received the statements for the first time after 3 years from my debut date and I was shocked at the state of the statements.
The statements we received were convoluted and not transparent at all. They weren't made monthly and were all out of order. The documents omitted many earnings, contained personal expenses made by the director and other expenses that were irrelevant to the group. According to our original contract, expenses such as investments, employee salaries and personal expenses by the Director should not be counted against our earnings. The contract says the only expenses that would be count against our earnings were: food, housing, styling and transportation.
Each member roughly owes $65,000 to the company. Yes, it's true that compared to other companies, the debt is not large. But without the supporting documents, I can't believe it in face-value. Because the first statements were incomplete, I asked for a re-evaluated statement with more information but the debt was larger in the updated statement. There were expenses for lessons that we never received and now I believe our debt statement isn't fully accurate."
