LOONA May Continue Activities As A Complete Group Due To Exclusive Contract With Universal Japan

The possibility that LOONA, which has suspended activities due to a dispute with Blockberry Creative, will be active in Japan rather than Korea has been raised among entertainment officials. According to industry officials, Universal Japan has started to take action to exercise exclusive rights over the members of LOONA directly. Universal Japan is an investment company of the group and is in charge of management in Japan.

It has been reported that Universal Japan is in the process of preparing Japan promotions for all twelve members. If Universal Japan issues exclusive rights to LOONA by replacing Blockberry Creative, it is expected that they will focus on Japanese activities such as album releases and fan meetings for at least three years.

Full Japanese activities will include member Chuu, who has been doing solo activities since early on. They have also decided to rectify the conflict between LOONA and Blockberry Creative by providing the settlement details directly to the members, revealing their status as one of the top record companies in Japan.

However, it was reported that if the members reject the activities provided by the Japanese agency without any convincing reason, legal disputes in Japan could also proceed in order.

In September 2019, all members signed an exclusive contract with Universal Japan that stated, “even if the contractual relationship with Blockberry Creative expires, the members must fulfill the exclusive contract, and if they do not comply, compensation for damages will be made according to Japanese law.”

In the cases of other previous girl groups, there were many that still had time left on their exclusive contract with their Japanese agency, thus causing them to continue activities in Japan even after their team activities had ended.

Previously, Blockberry Creative announced that Chuu had been kicked out of the group. They then submitted a petition to the Korea Entertainment Management Association and the Korea Entertainment Producers Association to ban Chuu from entertainment activities. They also postponed LOONA’s comeback in January indefinitely, announcing that “comeback activities are meaningless in a state where various concerns about the members’ situation have not been resolved.”