Former Super Junior member, Hangeng, recently withdrew his claim against agency SM Entertainment.
On September 25th, the Seoul Court made an announcement that they received a request on the 21st from Hangeng’s attorney to cancel a claim they made against SM.
This is the latest event in the long legal battle between Hangeng and SM. Hangeng had initiated the lawsuit against the agency a while back, claiming that they placed abnormal working conditions upon him, which inspired fans to call it a ‘slave contract’.
Hangeng had explained, “Due to the unreasonable penalties that would arise if I broke the rules of the contract, I was forced to maintain the schedules given to me.” He continued, “SM Entertainment had complete advantage over the contract, which asked for 13 years of service.”
After investigating the matter, the court released a judgment in favor of Hangeng in 2010, stating, “All three contracts – from the January 2003 contract, the altered contract from February 2007, and the affiliated contract from December 2007 – do not exist. Thus, Hangeng was waived from continuing the stated services on his contract.
At this time, SM had stated that they refused to accept this judgment, and would immediately appeal. It seems that Hangeng may have filed some sort of countersuit against SM’s appeal, but withdrew it for reasons unknown.