According to Sports Kyunghang, HYBE Group has "lost everything" in the lawsuit related to the shareholder contract with former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin. The court emphasized that most of HYBE's arguments were not accepted, and HYBE was the one that damaged trust first.
The court directly pointed out HYBE's imprudent use of the media - something that has been criticized by industry insiders for a long time.
According to the first-instance verdict collected by the Korean press on February 20, the jury determined that HYBE was the party that caused the conflict with Min Hee Jin to be made public first.
The court said that the protest emails from Min Hee Jin's side sent on April 3 and April 16, 2024 are still within the internal scope, and the exclusive article on April 22, 2024 from HYBE has caused the conflict to be publicly exposed. Therefore, Min Hee Jin's press conference on April 22, 2024 is considered a legitimate right to refute.
The court also pointed out that the time HYBE launched the audit of its subsidiary ADOR coincided with the time the article was published.
Specifically, on April 22, 2024, HYBE conducted an audit of ADOR, requesting Min Hee Jin to resign as CEO and begin dismissal procedures; on the same day, an article appeared with the title "HYBE activates the right to conduct surprise audits of ADOR's leadership - NewJeans' management company".
Regarding the accusation that Min Hee Jin "conspired to seize the management rights of ADOR", the court admitted that she was seeking a plan to weaken HYBE's control over ADOR and increase her independence.
However, these options are only set out on the condition that negotiations to amend the shareholder contract fail and after exercising the right to sell shares in 2025, and assuming HYBE's consent. Therefore, just finding an independent option for ADOR cannot be considered a serious breach of the contract.
The accusation that Min Hee Jin "lured NewJeans" was also rejected. The court argued that the director's actions were within the scope of the allowed business autonomy, so it could not be considered causing damage and must be compensated.
In summary, the court determined that the actions HYBE called "betrayal" were only at the level of private exchange that had not been implemented, were hypothetical and still depended on HYBE's consent. On the contrary, HYBE itself hastily audited and publicly disclosed information to the media, damaging trust.
The court also considered Min Hee Jin's suspicion of "ILLIT copying NewJeans" as a legitimate opinion. The court argued that this statement did not specify each factor in detail but only talked about a similar overall impression, so it belonged to the scope of opinion or value assessment, not affirming a verifiable truth.
Notably, the court compared NewJeans to Blackpink, stating: "In terms of female groups, only Blackpink is equivalent", and adding: "ADOR's fair value in the next 2 years could reach about 20,000 billion won".
The court cited analysis that at the beginning of 2024, Min Hee Jin's side estimated the market value of ADOR from 800 billion won to 1,500 billion won. Previously, YG Entertainment achieved the highest market capitalization of about 1,800 billion won thanks to Blackpink's achievements, but then decreased due to the risk of contract renewal.
The value of NewJeans is estimated at about 20,000 billion won, based on the assumption that the 3-party alliance between NewJeans - Min Hee Jin - HYBE continues to be maintained.
