Mediation For Jang Won-young’s Lawsuit Against Sojang Set In May, “There Will Be No Leniency” 

The Seoul Central District Court’s Civil Case 102-2 will hold a mediation on May 17th to coordinate the lawsuit demanding compensation for damages of 100 million won filed by IVE’s Jang Won-young against A, who operated the YouTube channel “Sojang”.

Earlier, the Seoul Central District Court’s Civil Affairs Department 9-3 decided to refer Jang Won-young’s lawsuit against Sojang’s operator A to mediation.

This is a procedure for resolving a lawsuit through mutual understanding between the involved parties and reaching an agreement between the two sides. If the parties reach an agreement, the lawsuit will be terminated. However, it seems that Jang Won-young and Starship Entertainment won’t change their position.

Earlier on January 17th, Starship issued their stance, promising to pursue their civil and criminal lawsuits against Sojang until the end. Jang Won-young’s legal representative also dismissed the possibility of an agreement, saying “Reaching and agreement through mediation may be a better conclusion from the court’s point of view. From our point of view, we are focusing on making the other party compensate for the damages”.

Starship received information about “Sojang” operator with the cooperation of Google’s headquarters in the US and firmly took action against the spread of fake news on May 2023. After filing the lawsuit against A, Jang Won-young and her company won some parts of the lawsuit on October 2023. 

Recently on April 3rd, Starship continued to claim damage against A for the second time, saying “There are no direct factors to consider between the plaintiff’s losses and the defendant’s profits. It is unclear how much of the revenue generated from the videos was created with A’s defamation and obstruction of business. It seems necessary to distinguish, but A already deleted their account, we can only know the total revenue.”