Actress Lee Young-ae filed a suit against the land owner of her ‘DaeJangGum’ restaurant, soap and café business for defamation, but lost. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan.6 (Korea Bizwire) – Actress Lee Young-ae filed a suit against the land owner of her ‘DaeJangGum’ restaurant, soap and café business for defamation, but lost.
The Seoul District Court announced that Lee and her husband, and ‘Leeyes’, Lee’s management company, lost the case in which they filed a suit against ‘Oh’ for defamation.
In October 2012, Oh rented his land to Lee and her party for a deposit of 50 million won. Lee’s party agreed that they would manage a café, restaurant and soap workshop and share 30 percent of the profits with Oh. Lee’s management company built the soap workshop and café the following year.
However, Oh cancelled the contract with the actress and her management for “not opening the ‘DaeJangGum’ restaurant which was promised in the beginning, and only carrying on with the soap business”. Lee’s management filed a suit against Oh for unilaterally cancelling the contract.
In the initial judgment, Oh was partially victorious, and currently an appeal is in progress. During this period, Oh revealed the legal issues in an interview, and the matter was reported in March 2015.
Lee and her party filed a suit against Oh for “claiming that Lee Young-ae was the main agent of the agreement and lawsuit” when actually it was Lee’s management that was directly involved. They filed a suit asking for 90 million won in compensation.
The court acknowledged that the party directly involved in the business is Lee’s management company. However, since Lee Young-ae could be used for marketing purposes, sharing a certain portion of the profits, Oh could not be blamed for giving out false information even if he mentioned ‘Lee’ and ‘Lee and her party’.
By Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
