S.Korean figure skater sues former agent

[unreal.livejournal.com]

South Korea's Olympics figure skating champion Kim Yu-Na is suing her former agent for failing to pay the athlete part of her endorsement earnings, her lawyer said.

IB Sports, the agency Kim left in April last year, failed to pay her 894 million won (793,960 dollars) earned from advertisement deals for Hyundai Motor and other companies, Kim's lawyer said on Monday.

"We filed the suit last November and the first court hearing was held on March 16 in Seoul," the lawyer Lee Sang-Hun told AFP.

"The sponsors continued to pay IB Sports for deals signed before April 2010 even after Kim left the agency, yet the firm did not give her share at all," he said.

Kim later set up her own agency, AT Sports.

"We're willing to return whatever she's due but we also need to get our share," Yonhap news agency quoted an IB Sports official as saying.

Kim, 20, who won gold at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, has been training in California with her new coach Peter Oppegard, with whom she teamed up in October after a split with her former coach, Canadian Brian Orser.

The figure skating champion dubbed "Queen Yu-Na" in her home country was listed by Forbes magazine last year as one of the world's highest-paid female athletes with annual earnings of 9.7 million dollars.

Kim was to compete at the World Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo scheduled for March 21 to 27 and flew to Seoul Sunday after the event was called off due to devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Source: afp

Comments

[chibi-rei.livejournal.com]

"We're willing to return whatever she's due but we also need to get our share,"
- and you've had plenty of time (I'm sure) to get your share. Now you risk losing that. Nice job.

[morgenderper.livejournal.com]

Wow, nice of them to keep it all....

[princess-momo.livejournal.com]

Why would you do anything that would land you on the bad side of Queen Yu-Na? Like, she won the gold medal; that's almost like ruling the world D:

[dislike.livejournal.com]

ugh she went through all that shit after she left brian and now this :( poor bb :(

[orenji13.livejournal.com]

what happen with all these company holding the artist paycheck??
It's like you need to demand your money, then they will give it to you.. I am not surprise with this anymore. They even dare to come cross Queen Yu Na and Yoo Jae Suk..

[wintersol.livejournal.com]

i've always wondered why she doesn't change the spelling of her name so that it's correct.

whatever, just pay the queen her money IB sports

[baeby-bloo-skys.livejournal.com]

this, although i guess because she's too famous already, it might be confusing?

[enchantark.livejournal.com]

what's wrong with the way it's spelled?

[baeby-bloo-skys.livejournal.com]

yuna is read as yoona, while her name would be either yeona or yuhna, although the latter would probably not be used as it just looks odd

[annhh.livejournal.com]

..what's wrong with the spelling?

[wintersol.livejournal.com]

The Hangul for her name is 연아 which would translate as Yeona. The way her name is written in English is more like 유나.

[annhh.livejournal.com]

I understand you mean in Korean it's Kim Yeona/Yuna and in English Yoona Kim.

weeell people can't tell the difference anyway. ^^ unless they already know

[baeby-bloo-skys.livejournal.com]

what's ib's share supposed to be? yuna left awhile ago, i think that's enough time for them to sort out whatever they think is their share

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

OMG SOUTH KOREA PAY THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR YOU!!! It's MC Jaesuk, it's your idols, it's Yuna now? What the hell? Work = Pay. It's not hard.