On the 21st, the 50th Civil Division of the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of ADOR, granting the agency’s request for an injunction to preserve its status as the exclusive management company and to prohibit NJZ members from signing independent advertising contracts.
Previously, in November of last year, the five NJZ (NewJeans) members claimed that ADOR had violated their exclusive contract, leading them to terminate it and begin independent activities. In response, ADOR filed for an injunction to prevent this.
The basis of NJZ’s claim that ADOR breached their contract is the breakdown of trust, citing the following reasons:
1. A leaked internal HYBE document discussing “discarding the old and restructuring with a new plan.”
2. The statement “Ignore them” made by an ILLIT manager and ADOR’s failure to actively secure the CCTV footage from that day. (ADOR claimed the footage was automatically deleted due to time passing, yet curiously, the footage of ILLIT greeting NJZ on that same day was preserved.)
3. During the tragic Jeju Air disaster in December of last year, HYBE allegedly prevented NJZ (NewJeans) from wearing mourning ribbons, while other HYBE groups like LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT were allowed to wear them.
4. During a parliamentary audit at the National Assembly in Seoul, a “Weekly Music Industry Report” created by HYBE was revealed to contain blatant disparagement of both HYBE’s own and other companies’ idols.
5. HYBE PR allegedly attempted to discredit NJZ’s performance in Japan to a journalist and even tried to offer golf-related hospitality.
6. Despite repeated requests from the members to continue working with CEO Min Hee-jin, HYBE replaced the board members and ultimately removed Min from her position.
7. Leaked trainee-era videos of NJZ (NewJeans) members.
A particularly strange aspect is that neither HYBE nor ADOR has ever taken visible action to track down and punish those responsible for these leaks or incidents, nor have they shown any effort to prevent such occurrences in the future.
It seems unlikely that they simply refrained from announcing such efforts because they were “too obvious to mention.” When the “Weekly Music Industry Report” was leaked, HYBE promptly released a statement declaring that they would “hold those responsible for the leak fully accountable.”
