EXO-CBX Sue INB100: Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin Move to Suspend Their Contracts Amid a $22 Million Fraud Scandal
EXO’s Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin — collectively known as CBX — have taken their agency to court. On September 7, 2026, the trio filed a lawsuit against INB100 seeking a provisional injunction to suspend the effect of their exclusive contracts, alongside a main lawsuit asking the court to formally confirm those contracts are null and void.
The Seoul Central District Court’s Civil Division 50, presided over by Judge Lee Sang-hoon, held the injunction hearing the same day.
It’s the latest, and arguably most consequential, chapter in a saga that has kept CBX sidelined from full-group EXO activities for years and now intersects with a criminal fraud case involving tens of billions of won.
What happened in court on September 7
According to legal sources, CBX’s side argued the case in a hearing that reportedly lasted under ten minutes — largely because INB100 didn’t send a representative and hasn’t submitted any written response since the injunction petition was filed.
CBX’s legal team told the court that INB100 CEO Cha Ga Won “has been detained and has not been reachable since the injunction petition.”
If the court grants the injunction, CBX’s exclusive contracts with INB100 would be suspended until a verdict is reached in the main lawsuit over whether those contracts are valid at all. In effect, the trio is trying to freeze their obligations to the agency while the courts sort out whether the contracts should be voided outright.
This isn’t a sudden move. CBX notified INB100 chairman Cha Ga Won in April that they intended to terminate their exclusive contracts, citing unpaid settlement payments among other grievances.
A formal certificate of content — Korea’s version of a legal notice — had already been sent at the end of March, giving the company a two-week window to respond.
Reports at the time described the situation as dire: despite securing significant advance payments through IP-based contracts tied to EXO-CBX, the company was said to have entered a state of near-total capital impairment, with settlements owed to the artists allegedly running into the tens of billions of won, and payments to partner companies and staff also reportedly in arrears.
INB100 never gave a response CBX considered satisfactory. Five months later, the members went to court.
Where INB100 came from
To understand why this dispute matters, it helps to trace INB100’s short but turbulent history. Baekhyun founded INB100 in 2023 as he was preparing to step away from SM Entertainment’s direct management.
Chen and Xiumin joined him there in January 2024, and CBX’s unit and solo activities moved under the new label — at which point the trio began operating simply as “CBX,” dropping the EXO name from their unit branding.
Months later, in May 2024, INB100 was folded into One Hundred Label (also styled Onehundred), a company headed by Cha Ga Won, who became its largest shareholder alongside a partnership involving rapper MC Mong.
One Hundred Label grew rapidly, expanding to house other artists — including members of The Boyz — as Cha built out what one report called a “multilabel entertainment empire” in record time. That empire has since collapsed just as quickly.
The Cha Ga Won fraud case
The context that makes this lawsuit especially urgent is Cha Ga Won’s own legal trouble. In August 2026, Cha — also chair of P_Arc Group — was arrested and later indicted on fraud charges involving approximately 30 billion won (roughly $21–22 million USD).
Prosecutors allege Cha proposed a business to Nomus Co. (also referenced in reporting as Knowmerce) that would use the intellectual property of artists signed to her agency, signed a contract, and received an advance payment of 24.2 billion won — then failed to deliver on the promised business.
Investigators reportedly found that Cha signed the deal while concealing that existing business dealings were unlikely to wrap up soon and that she hadn’t properly prepared to carry out the venture.
Police had sought an arrest warrant against Cha as early as June 2026, only to have it rejected twice by prosecutors before a third application succeeded.
She was formally arrested on August 3 after a Seoul Central District Court hearing, with the judge citing concerns over the potential destruction of evidence. She was indicted on August 25 and is scheduled to face her first trial on October 13.
Cha has denied the allegations, characterizing the fraud claims as part of a hostile takeover attempt targeting One Hundred Label — a claim that has surfaced repeatedly amid separate, unrelated allegations reported in the Korean press about her personal life, which she has also denied.
For CBX, Cha’s detention isn’t just background noise — it’s a practical problem.
With the CEO in custody and unreachable, and the company failing to respond to or contest the injunction petition, the members’ legal team has effectively argued there’s no functioning counterparty left to negotiate with.
The long-running SM Entertainment dispute
This INB100 lawsuit doesn’t exist in isolation — it’s the second major legal front CBX has fought in as many years, and the first one still shapes how this one is being read.
Back in 2023, CBX sued SM Entertainment, claiming the agency failed to provide settlement records and had enforced unfair contract terms.
That dispute was eventually resolved through an agreement allowing CBX to maintain their exclusive contracts with SM while having their individual and unit activities managed separately by INB100 — the arrangement that set the current chain of events in motion.
But the peace didn’t last. By mid-2025, INB100 accused SM of reneging on the negotiated terms for winding down the members’ exclusive contracts, alleging SM had demanded 10 percent of the artists’ individual-activity revenue instead of the previously agreed 5.5 percent.
INB100 threatened to cancel the arrangement on grounds of fraud or non-fulfillment of obligations, and by late June 2025, the members and INB100 had filed a criminal complaint against SM executives for fraud.
SM countered with its own lawsuit in the Seoul Eastern District Court seeking to enforce the existing contract terms.
Court-led mediation between the two sides collapsed in late 2025 — the first session, covering a contract dispute reportedly worth around 600 million won, failed to produce an agreement, and a second round was set for October.
Ultimately, none of it worked out in CBX’s favor: by October 28, 2025, all five lawsuits CBX had filed against SM Entertainment were dismissed, with the court finding no violations related to their complaints. In the aftermath, INB100 stated it intended to reach a settlement with SM so the members could rejoin EXO’s already-announced full-group activities. SM, for its part, confirmed it had won every lawsuit and pushed back on INB100’s framing.
The fallout was visible almost immediately: EXO moved forward with a six-member comeback in late 2025, leaving CBX on the sidelines. The trio had also been absent from the group’s eighth full album, “Reverxe,” released in January 2026 — their first album as a full unit in two and a half years — because of the ongoing legal entanglement between INB100 and SM.
Why this new lawsuit matters
Layered on top of that history, the INB100 lawsuit raises the stakes considerably. A few things make it significant:
It could reshape CBX’s relationship with the entire EXO ecosystem. Having already lost their fight with SM Entertainment and missed a full-group comeback, CBX now needs their contracts with INB100 resolved — one way or another — before any future group or individual activities can move forward cleanly.
The agency itself may be unable to respond. With CEO Cha Ga Won in custody and facing an October trial, and with INB100 apparently submitting no written materials to contest the injunction, the company’s ability to defend itself procedurally is in serious doubt. That could work in CBX’s favor if the court views the agency’s silence as effectively conceding the point.
It’s part of a wider industry story. One Hundred Label’s collapse isn’t just affecting CBX. The Boyz have separately been engaged in their own contract termination dispute with the same label, and the broader fraud case has left the K-pop industry scrutinizing how quickly the company built — and lost — a multi-artist roster.
Fans are watching closely. The case has generated heavy discussion across fan communities and Korean entertainment outlets, with many watching for signs of when — or whether — CBX might finally be free to plan their careers without the specter of ongoing litigation.
No ruling has been announced yet on the injunction. Given the pattern of this dispute, another mediation attempt, appeal, or extended court battle wouldn’t be a surprise. What’s clear is that CBX is now fighting to exit not just a contract, but an agency whose leadership is fighting fraud charges of its own — a far messier ending than anyone around EXO likely expected when INB100 was founded in 2023.
“Below is a photo of the EXO group’s current lineup.”
