Recently, the Seoul Central Court (Korea) held the 5th court hearing in the case of ADOR company (under HYBE Group) suing female singer Danielle (former member of NewJeans), her family and former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin, requesting compensation of a total of 33.1 billion won in contract violation fines and damages.
At the trial, the two sides continued to argue about the basis for determining the level of damage. ADOR believes that NewJeans' future revenue needs to be predicted based on the achievements that the group has achieved before.
Conversely, Danielle believes that the assessment must take into account changes in the operating environment, including the fact that Min Hee Jin no longer holds the CEO position and the production team that once accompanied the group has also changed.
At the trial, Danielle's side pointed out that it has been almost 1 year since NewJeans members announced their return, but ADOR has not yet had a specific operating plan. Therefore, they requested the court to request ADOR to provide documents related to NewJeans' operating plan.
Danielle argued that it is necessary to verify whether ADOR actually built an operating plan for NewJeans or not. If the group cannot return due to ADOR's production capacity or company internal issues, Danielle argued that the level of damage she is responsible for also needs to be recalculated.
ADOR rejected this suspicion, affirming that the company does not have no operating plans for NewJeans. The company side emphasized: "The lawsuit may delay resuming operations, but it does not mean we do not have operating plans".
ADOR also opposed the request to provide documents, arguing that they have no legal obligation to hand over to the adversaries the contents expected to be officially announced in the future. The company is also concerned that the requested documents may contain business secrets.
Regarding this issue, Danielle's side believes that if ADOR really plans to bring NewJeans back to normal operations, the company should provide documents to prove it. Parts containing confidential information may be hidden and Danielle's side is committed to only using documents for procedural purposes.
After the debate, the court proposed that ADOR provide documents that have covered parts of business secrets. Danielle's side can check these documents with the participation of an accountant.
Previously, 5 NewJeans members had announced the termination of their exclusive contract with ADOR. However, in October last year, the court ruled that the exclusive contract between ADOR and NewJeans was still valid. The members did not appeal, so the ruling was upheld.
After that, Haerin, Hyein and Hanni returned to ADOR, while the company continued to discuss with Minji about the possibility of returning.
As for Danielle, ADOR announced the termination of the contract and filed a lawsuit to request her and related people to take responsibility for leaving NewJeans.
