VIVIZ Contract Suspension Granted in Full as Court Cites Unpaid Artist Settlements

VIVIZ, the K-pop trio made up of Eunha, SinB and Umji, had its request for a preliminary injunction suspending the effect of its exclusive contracts granted in full on June 5, 2026. The dispute is no longer only about whether the contracts have already ended. For the period before a ruling in the main lawsuit, the central question has become who can control the members' activities.

Civil Division 50 of the Seoul Central District Court determined that the effect of the exclusive contracts between Big Planet Made Entertainment and the members should be suspended until the judgment in the main case is delivered. For K-pop readers, the important point is not only the size of the unpaid artist settlement payments. It is how the decision opens time and room for discussions over the team name, schedules and possible new partners.

VIVIZ's side had already issued a legal representative's position in April 2026, and the court's June decision accepted the suspension of contract effect. Within the same label environment, cases involving Lee Mu-jin and Lee Seung Gi also followed. VIVIZ's official 'MANIAC' video and the team's activity history show why the dispute is tied not just to contract interpretation, but also to the timetable for the group's activities.

Exclusive contract effect suspended until the main judgment

The latest decision is not a final ruling on who will win or lose the main lawsuit. Even so, its practical impact is significant because it prevents the agency, until the main case is resolved, from negotiating or signing contracts with third parties against the members' wishes, demanding entertainment activities from them, or asking third parties to restrict their activities.

A preliminary injunction is a procedure where speed matters. In K-pop, schedules such as comebacks, fan-meetings and overseas events require long preparation periods, while the available windows can close quickly. In that setting, a temporary legal status before the final judgment often becomes the real timetable of an artist's career.

That is why this case reads as more than a legal fight between an agency and its artists. It is also an operational question over whether a three-member team can minimize its hiatus. Having the door to activity opened and having activity immediately stabilized are two different matters.

Court cited unpaid settlements of more than 100 million won per member

The court treated its finding that unpaid settlement amounts exceeded 100 million won for each member as a major basis for the decision. It also found that the settlement statements listed only sales and cost amounts, without attaching supporting materials such as tax invoices or receipts, and that later provision of materials or guidance on how to inspect them was not sufficient.

This point matters beyond a simple delay in payment. If artists cannot verify the structure of their own earnings, trust is difficult to restore even if some money is later paid. In an exclusive contract relationship, accounting transparency is part of the working foundation, not a side issue.

The key timeline in the VIVIZ exclusive contract dispute runs from delayed settlements in November 2025, to the notice of contract termination on March 4, 2026, to the full grant of the injunction on June 5, 2026. The court's reasoning also included the finding that each member had more than 100 million won in unpaid settlement amounts.

Those three points in time are not separate incidents. The payment issue, the documentation issue and the activity support issue were accumulated and then connected through the legal language of a breakdown in trust. Because the possibility of a wider scope of claims in the main lawsuit has been mentioned, later proceedings may address not only the unpaid amounts, but also the submission of the underlying materials used to calculate them.

Canceled EP06 and first-half fan-meetings

VIVIZ's side stated that the new album EP06, which was being prepared in January 2026, and domestic and overseas fan-meetings planned for the first half of the year were canceled. From the fandom's point of view, that is not merely the disappearance of one schedule. It affects the rhythm through which a team maintains public attention, fan contact and commercial momentum.

VIVIZ is the team that Eunha, SinB and Umji formed after GFriend's activities ended. During the 2023 'MANIAC' activities, the official video strongly placed group choreography on a road and separated movement lines for the three members, clearly showing a performance identity built around the trio format. For a team like this, the longer the gap between comebacks grows, the more quickly management issues can overtake the music in search results.

The practical effect of the injunction also belongs here. Even if the members can now review independent activities, whether the canceled album can be revived as it was is a separate question. Music release rights, production cost settlements, fan-meeting contracts and the scope of team-name use all have to be arranged before a new schedule can become an official notice rather than a news sentence.

Contract disputes continued within the ONE HUNDRED label network

The dispute is difficult to view as an isolated VIVIZ-only case. The granting of injunctions for some members of The Boyz, the moves by Lee Taemin and BE'O to new agencies, Lee Mu-jin's exclusive contract suspension procedure and Lee Seung Gi's notice of contract termination have all continued within the same affiliated line, keeping questions over settlement practices and support capacity in view.

When the same kind of dispute appears across multiple artists, the market often looks first at the operational reliability of the label rather than at individual contract clauses. Still, the cases cannot be merged into one conclusion. Each artist's contract terms, settlement cycle, claimed unpaid amount and activity obligations are different.

The information value of this decision is therefore not an emotional conclusion about Big Planet Made Entertainment. It lies in what circumstances the court treated as internal company matters unrelated to the artists. The view that payment delays are difficult to explain through claims of outside forces or false reporting alone may become a reference point in similar disputes later.

Main lawsuit and official activity notices remain

Two tasks remain for VIVIZ. The first is how specifically the unpaid settlement scope and document submission issues will be developed in the main lawsuit. The second is whether the activity possibility opened by the injunction will actually connect to a new agency partner, use of the team name, and album or performance schedules.

The signals fans should watch are not speculative rumors. They are notices from legal representatives, court procedures, and team activity announcements through official channels.

The decision is not a declaration that VIVIZ has immediately obtained complete freedom. But it is clear that the court has greatly reduced the mechanisms that could bind the members' activities before the main judgment. If a new notice appears, the first point to check will be whether it gives a concrete plan for filling the gap left by the canceled album and fan-meetings.