Jay Chou Sued by Beijing Businessman for Breaking Contract

A few days ago, Taiwanese star Jay Chou (周杰倫) was sued by a rich businessman from Beijing, who accused Jay of breaking their restaurant business agreement and is asking for compensation of over 10 million RMB.

According to reports, the dispute began when the businessman, who is known only as Mr. Wei (魏先生), discovered that Jay had made false promises in the early stages of their partnership. In 2010, the two had signed a business agreement, in which they consented to jointly establish a company that would develop a mainland Chinese restaurant under the name of Mr. J, which is the name of Jay Chou’s French-Italian restaurant in Taiwan. However, the project kept getting delayed, and Mr. Wei later discovered that Jay did not own the exclusive rights to the “Mr. J” trademark in mainland China, as had been stated in the initial agreement. By that time, Mr. Wei had already invested more than 15 million RMB in the project.

Mr. Wei says that he met with Jay to discuss the issue, but thereafter, “Mr. Chou kept dragging it on and on. In the end, he just stopped contacting me, so for two years, I had to face the other stockholders all by myself. Now all we can do is to ask for compensation through legal channels.”

Jay’s manager confirmed that there had indeed been plans to collaborate, but that these plans had not been able to keep up with changing circumstances. He also divulged that the agreement had been signed between Mr. Wei and the following three stockholders and representatives of Mr. J French-Italian Restaurant: Huang Junlang (黃俊郎), Huang Xinyu (黃心昱), and Zeng Xianyu (曾賢毓). When the four of them signed the company establishment contract, Huang Junlang proposed that they sign a second agreement with Jay Chou, lyricist Vincent Fang (方文山), singer Gary Yang (楊瑞代), and Jason Fan (范牧群), which would be proof of their assistance in the expansion of the business in mainland China.

In an interview a few days ago, Jay’s manager said that, at the time, Jay endured the situation because of the loyalty between friends, but did not invest anything. “Who would have thought that he would be implicated?” his manager said. “Right now we can only settle things through the law.”

Source: Sohu.com

This article is written by Joanna for JayneStars.com.