Why LOONA Members Are Still Fighting Their Old Agency in Court

Ten of the twelve people who were once in LOONA have now won court rulings freeing them from their old agency, Blockberry Creative. Two more are still waiting. What looks from the outside like one long-running feud is actually four separate lawsuits, filed at different times by different members, moving through the courts at different speeds since 2021.

That fragmentation is the story. Understanding why a single contract dispute took this many tracks — and why one of them is still open five years later — explains a lot about how the K-pop agency system actually works when it breaks down.

What the courts have actually decided

Former member Chuu was the first to sue and the first to get a final answer: Korea's Supreme Court confirmed in June 2024 that her exclusive contract was invalid. Four other members — Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Choerry — won their own contract-invalidity suit in June 2024, and Blockberry did not appeal.

Five more members — Haseul, Yeojin, Yves, Go Won and Olivia Hye — won a partial ruling in April 2025, and that decision has since been upheld. That leaves only Hyunjin and Vivi, whose main lawsuit was still unresolved as of early 2026, five years after the dispute began.

A payment dispute that started with just one member

The case that started it all wasn't about a dramatic falling-out. In December 2021, Chuu filed for an injunction over money — she said she had gone years without being paid despite regularly appearing on television and in advertisements.

A court investigation later detailed why. Between 2016 and September 2021, Chuu's individual activities generated roughly 860 million won (about $650,000) in net profit. Under Blockberry's revenue-sharing clause, she was entitled to nothing unless that profit exceeded 40% of total sales — a bar her earnings never cleared.

The same investigation found that at LOONA's commercial peak in 2019, the group generated an estimated 2.88 billion won in sales and 1.11 billion won in profit that was not shared with any member.

Revenue splits vary by agency, and K-pop contracts commonly pay artists only after production costs are recovered. What courts found unusual here was the size of the threshold: Chuu's clause meant that, no matter how much her work brought in, she could not collect a won of it unless profit cleared 40% of total sales.

An expulsion that convinced nine more members to sue

In November 2022, Blockberry expelled Chuu from LOONA outright, saying an internal investigation had found she verbally abused staff. Chuu denied the allegations and said she had done nothing she was ashamed of; the agency did not release the evidence publicly, citing staff privacy.

Within days, nine of the group's remaining eleven members filed to suspend their own contracts. Their stated reason, widely reported at the time, was that 'mutual trust' between the members and the agency had collapsed — a standard that Korean courts have long recognized as grounds to void an exclusive contract even before its term ends.

Why an idol contract even has a fixed term

This is the part international fans usually don't have context for. Korean entertainment agencies sign trainees to exclusive contracts years before debut, covering training, styling, lodging and management in exchange for a cut of future earnings. Trainees are not paid a salary; the agency advances those costs as a bet on future income, then recoups them once the artist debuts.

That structure is why exclusive contracts run for years and why leaving early can trigger repayment demands — it's the financial logic behind almost every K-pop contract dispute, not just this one.

After a wave of so-called 'slave contract' disputes in the late 2000s, Korea's Fair Trade Commission introduced a standard contract in 2009 that caps exclusivity at seven years. LOONA debuted as a full 12-member group in August 2018, so by the time the lawsuits began, most members were roughly four years into that seven-year window — contractually still bound, but with an expiration date already in view.

The Japan deal that became the legal turning point

The nine members who filed in November 2022 didn't all win right away. In a January 2023 ruling, four of them — Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Choerry — had their contracts suspended immediately. The other five initially lost, because they had previously signed amended terms with the agency.

Those five appealed, and in June 2023 the Seoul High Court sided with them too. The court's reasoning mattered beyond just their case: Blockberry had transferred part of the members' exclusive contract rights to a Japanese entertainment company without getting the members' written consent, which the contract required. That single finding became the legal hook that freed the majority of the group.

Why one dispute produced four separate verdicts

Korean civil procedure doesn't let members file one combined case when they sue at different times over different terms. Each filing opens its own docket, and it runs on its own clock.

• Chuu sued in December 2021 — first to file, first to reach the Supreme Court, in June 2024.
• Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Choerry sued alongside Chuu's group in late 2022 and won a final, unappealed ruling in June 2024.
• Haseul, Yeojin, Yves, Go Won and Olivia Hye had lost their first injunction, so their timeline ran later — a first-instance win only came in April 2025.
• Hyunjin and Vivi filed their injunction in mid-2023, months after the others, and their main lawsuit is still working through the courts.

Each group's case also has to separately prove that its specific contract, signed at a specific time, was invalid or properly terminated. A court finding for one member's paperwork doesn't automatically apply to another's.

Two members are still waiting for a final answer

Hyunjin and Vivi already won their injunction back in 2023, so — like the others — they have not been bound day-to-day by Blockberry's rules since then. But their main lawsuit, the one that formally settles whether their original contract was ever valid, has not reached a first-instance ruling.

Winning wouldn't change their day-to-day freedom, which the 2023 injunction already secured. It would settle a narrower, more formal question: whether their original contract was void from the start or simply terminated later — a distinction that can still affect financial claims between the two sides.

Korean reporting from late 2023 described Blockberry as unwilling to concede the case even after losing its early rounds, with a company representative stating flatly, 'We did nothing wrong.' That posture — contesting every stage rather than settling once the pattern of rulings became clear — is a large part of why the overall saga has run past the four-year mark.

Does the name 'LOONA' still belong to anyone?

Blockberry separately sued to stop former members from using LOONA-related material after they left, including a case against members performing as Loossemble. It lost: courts have generally held that once an exclusive contract is terminated, rights tied to it revert to the artists, not the agency that signed them.

The original 12-member unit has not promoted together since the dispute began. Several former members regrouped under new agencies instead — Chuu at ATRP, and Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry and Haseul together at ModHouse, where they now perform as ARTMS.

What is still unresolved

The core, unresolved question is narrow but real: whether Hyunjin and Vivi's original contract with Blockberry gets the same legal treatment the other ten members' contracts already received. Until that ruling lands, their case keeps the broader dispute technically open.

Blockberry Creative has not issued a public statement suggesting it plans to stop contesting the remaining case, based on its pattern in the earlier rounds. For the ten members whose cases are settled, the practical dispute is over — but the paperwork that started it, the 2021 payment complaint that grew into five years of litigation, is still not fully closed.

The four LOONA lawsuits, member by member

Frequently asked

Why did LOONA members sue their agency Blockberry Creative?

Chuu filed first in December 2021 over years of unpaid earnings, and after Blockberry expelled her in November 2022, nine more members sued citing a collapse of mutual trust.

Has LOONA officially disbanded?

There's no formal disbandment, but the original 12-member unit hasn't promoted together since the lawsuits began, and several members have moved to new agencies like ARTMS and ATRP.

Which LOONA members haven't won their court case yet?

Hyunjin and Vivi are still waiting on their main lawsuit, which as of early 2026 had not reached a first-instance ruling, even though their 2023 injunction already freed them day-to-day.