>>37262934I just woke up, forgive me...
We want to further be transparent about what has occurred with Person A regarding Saki Ashizawa over the last few months.
In early September, 2022, Person A informed us of their wishes to longer continue with their contract conducting activities as Saki Ashizawa. At this time, Person A motioned for us to rescind the non-competition agreement post-termination of contract, on the basis that this non-competition stipulation was illegal as it remained in effect after the termination of said contract.
After consulting with our lawyer, we offered to Person A our explanation that this was not an illegal stipulation and provided legal documentation as to why, as well as why we could not immediately revoke our contract. However, we wanted to take Person A’s desires into account and offered an alternative arrangement that would ease the non-competition clause.
Person A responded to our offer by saying “I have already consulted with my lawyer. Cancel the entire agreement as the non-competition stipulation is illegal.” We had responded to Person A by saying “Based on our explanation, we would like you to consult with your lawyer once again, and would appreciate their cooperation in discussions with our lawyer.” However we received no further response from Person A’s lawyer and the situation stagnated for some time.
Additionally, we had been preparing for several months to hold a special birthday live concert for Saki Ashizawa. Our team remained ready to put on this event until this serious breach of contract was discovered.
To further clarify about, Person A themselves informed us on October 23, 2022 “I would like the birthday live concert to be held at this particular time.” However, discussions about when to formally dissolve their contract had not continued, so we communicated to them it was impossible to commit to their requested time not knowing when Person A’s activities with SuperYellow Inc. would come to an end.
When we discussed this position with Person A and informed them of “not being able to commit to this timeframe,” they proposed the idea of simply “not holding the birthday live concert event.”
Following this, Person A as Saki Ashizawa on a publically viewable streaming broadcasted repeatedly claimed it was entirely RIOT MUSIC / SuperYellow Inc.’s fault the Saki Ashizawa birthday live concert was not held. Additionally, we were able to confirm they made a number of comments that undermined our reputation and unnecessarily critiqued the other members of RIOT MUSIC.
As we outlined above, at no time did SuperYellow Inc. decide to not hold this birthday live concert. Even after Person A informed us of their desire for contract termination, and them submitting “live event opt out” forums, we didn’t give up on the possibility of hosting this event until the very end.
We opted to remain quiet about these ongoing internal discussions in order to protect the credibility of our intellectual property, Saki Ashizawa and by extension Person A. At this point we have no choice but to state their claims are completely untrue, and we openly deny them.
The next day, October 24, 2022, SuperYellow Inc. received a letter (dated October 21, 2022) that Person A would only communicate through their lawyer going forward. From then on, our communications have been handled by our respective lawyers.
In our following correspondence, SuperYellow Inc. has maintained the view that the non-compete clause remains legal, however we have clearly clarified to Person A’s lawyer that our real concern was with the dissemination of SuperYellow Inc.’s assets and information and that in no way did we wish to interfere with Person A’s future activities even if they were to join a competing organization. To that end we presented further alternatives for easing the non-competition obligation.
We also reiterated to Person A’s lawyer that we would be open to holiday the aforementioned birthday live concert event if we could come to an agreement on a date for contract termination.
Unfortunately, while these negotiations were ongoing, we discovered Person A’s serious and ongoing breach of contract leading to the immediate dissolution of said contract.
To everyone that supported Saki Ashizawa until now we deeply apologize for potentially upsetting you with this information, and so suddenly at that. We are committing to further compliance training to ensure an incident like this does not occur again.
We appreciate your continued support of RIOT MUSIC.
