During Bae Hyun-jin's questioning, the document appeared on screen — prompting Democratic Party committee chair Lee Jae-jung to demand accountability for unauthorized copying
The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee national audit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism was briefly suspended Wednesday after a confidential contract related to the "Phenomenon" K-pop event was displayed on screen, triggering a dispute that threw the proceedings into disarray.
The controversy erupted when a copy of the event contract between the Popular Culture Exchange Committee and JYP Entertainment was shown in the hearing room, with ruling and opposition lawmakers clashing sharply over how it was obtained and whether its disclosure was lawful.
The dispute began during questioning by People Power Party lawmaker Bae Hyun-jin, who projected portions of the contract onto the chamber screen while arguing that its terms were unfair — citing a clause that would allow JYP to file trademark applications without transferring the rights to the government.
Ruling party lawmakers and Democratic Party Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee Chair Lee Jae-jung immediately raised objections.
Their concern was that a document the Popular Culture Exchange Committee had refused to submit to the Assembly — citing confidentiality — had been made public through a particular lawmaker's office.
Lee declared a suspension of the audit, saying she had been left looking foolish as chair because even she had been unable to see the document. She called on negotiators from both parties to discuss how to handle the situation.
According to the account that emerged, a Popular Culture Exchange Committee staffer visited Bae's office on Sept. 11 and allowed her aides to review the original contract, with both sides going through its contents together.
During that review, an aide suggested that making a copy for each side would make it easier to go through the document. The staffer agreed and a copy was made — but the staffer then collected both the original and the copy before leaving. That was the sequence of events as committee chair Choi had understood it.
Lee called for accountability over the unauthorized copying and demanded that copies distributed at the hearing be retrieved.
Bae pushed back, saying she had no obligation to report to the committee chair how she had obtained materials. People Power Party negotiator Cho Eun-hee also refused to hand over the copies, saying there was nothing a National Assembly member could not make public.
With the People Power Party declining to return the copies, Lee moved to defuse the standoff, saying she would ask members to exercise maximum caution about disclosure and that incorporating the contract's contents into their questions — rather than displaying the document directly — would be acceptable.
Meanwhile, Bae pressed Popular Culture Exchange Committee Co-chair Park Jin-young on whether overseas trademarks for "Phenomenon" would be assigned to JYP Entertainment and who had drafted the initial trademark-related contract terms.
People Power Party lawmakers also appeared to probe Park over his ties to the current administration.
Lawmaker Cho noted that Park had been photographed alongside President Lee Jae Myung during his visit to Mexico, where Lee attended a Stray Kids performance, and said she worried that "the public might think Chairman Park has taken a side and that he could suffer for it."
Park rebuffed the suggestion, saying he had never once thought of himself as working for President Lee or for the Democratic Party administration. "I'm doing this because I genuinely believe it will benefit the next generation," he said.
jiyun@heraldcorp.com
