Kang Daniel, a popular South Korean singer who was formerly a member of Wanna One, established his personal agency KONNECT Entertainment in 2019 due to disputes with his previous company. However, today it was reported that Kang Daniel has been allegedly embezzled by a shareholder who owns 70% of the company, signing contracts worth 10 billion Korean won (approximately 26 million new Taiwan dollars/769,000 US dollars) using Kang Daniel’s name.
According to a report by “YTN,” Kang Daniel filed a criminal lawsuit against a major shareholder, identified as A, of KONNECT Entertainment on charges of forgery related to 10 billion Korean won and embezzling 2 billion Korean won, as well as violating information and communication network laws. KONNECT Entertainment also issued a statement confirming the situation.
Kang Daniel’s legal representative stated that Kang Daniel filed a criminal lawsuit today for suspected forgery of private documents, corruption, abuse of power, violation of information and communication laws, and fraud with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
In the statement, it was mentioned that over the past five years since Kang Daniel founded the company, he has diligently taken on the responsibility as the company’s leader and artist, nurturing trust like family with the company’s artists and staff. Despite striving hard to minimize losses for third parties involved in contracts during the past year leading up to the criminal lawsuit, as the situation reached a point where a legal resolution was necessary, Kang Daniel reluctantly pursued legal action.
Unbeknownst to Kang Daniel, shareholder A signed a 10 billion Korean won prepayment contract in Kang Daniel’s name using the corporate seal in December 2022. It was not until January 2023 that Kang Daniel found out about this, and upon inquiry, he was provided no response regarding the contract, only confirming the situation by directly obtaining transaction details from the bank.
Furthermore, it has been determined that A unlawfully embezzled over 2 billion Korean won from the company’s account through means such as overseas remittances without Kang Daniel’s consent or legitimate resolutions from the board of directors and shareholders’ meeting.
Regarding the abuse of power allegations, A used an anonymous corporate credit card to spend tens of millions of Korean won, falsely recording the expenses in the company’s accounting books under categories like Kang Daniel’s equipment costs. As for the suspected offenses of infringing on information and communication networks and computer-related fraud, Kang Daniel discovered that A withdrew over 1.7 billion Korean won from the bank account in his name without his knowledge during the review of the company’s financial transactions.
Having previously gone through a similar situation in 2019 when his former company LM Entertainment transferred exclusive contract rights to third-party collaborators without his consent, Kang Daniel took legal action to suspend the exclusive contract through the court before setting up KONNECT Entertainment. Consequently, following media coverage of this incident today has left fans worried.
In response, Kang Daniel’s legal representative concluded in the statement: “We are deeply grateful and sorry for the concerns and harm caused to Kang Daniel due to the coverage of this matter. Knowing that legal actions may cause distress to many people given our past litigation experience, we apologize even more. However, we hope that the culture and arts industry will not witness any more inappropriate incidents like this, and we hope this will be the final one, which is why we have mustered the courage to pursue this legal action. If the investigative authorities can definitively clarify this matter through a thorough investigation, we will issue another official statement. Thank you all.”