Actor Kim Soo-hyun has won a final victory in a lawsuit filed by a Swiss watch brand seeking the return of approximately 570 million won in advertising contract fees.
According to legal circles on the 11th, Civil Agreement Division 13 of the Seoul Eastern District Court (Presiding Judge Choi Su-jin) dismissed all claims made by Mido in a contract fee return lawsuit filed against Kim Soo-hyun's agency, Gold Medalist, on the 27th of last month. As Mido did not appeal by the 10th, which was the final day of the appeal period, the first-instance ruling was finalized as is.
Mido initially signed an advertising model contract with Kim Soo-hyun in December 2020 and renewed it annually, extending the contract for another year last year with a model fee of 900 million won. However, following personal life controversies surrounding Kim Soo-hyun in March of last year, Mido unilaterally terminated the contract in May and filed a lawsuit demanding the return of approximately 577 million won for the remaining contract period.
Mido reportedly argued that regardless of how the controversy arose, Kim Soo-hyun's commercial value as a model had already been compromised, making the contract termination and refund request justified. On the other hand, Gold Medalist countered that the controversy stemmed from a third party's one-sided disclosure and that because Kim Soo-hyun bore no fault, he could not be held responsible for the contract termination.
The court accepted Gold Medalist's arguments and ruled that the grounds for contract termination itself were not established.
In March of last year, suspicions were raised that Kim Soo-hyun had been in a relationship with the late Kim Sae-ron since she was a minor, leading him to halt all acting and advertising activities and take legal action. Kim Se-ui, the head of Hover Lab who raised the suspicions, was subsequently indicted while detained on charges of violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection (Defamation), while Kim Soo-hyun himself received a non-prosecution decision due to insufficient evidence from the Seongdong Police Station in Seoul regarding charges of violating the Child Welfare Act and false accusation.
Apart from Mido, Kim Soo-hyun's side is currently involved in separate damage suit proceedings totaling around 10 billion won with multiple other advertisers.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Kyung-youn)