The 41st Civil Court of the Seoul Central District Court ( Judge Jung Hoe Il) has issued a verdict in the lawsuit filed by ADOR to confirm the validity of the exclusive contract with five NewJeans members.
Accordingly, the court declared that the contracts signed between ADOR and NewJeans in 2022 were valid, the lawsuit costs were borne by NewJeans.
Notably, the court rejected the accusation that HYBE intentionally "replaced" NewJeans with the group ILLIT, the unit accused of copying NewJeans' image and style.
In the verdict, the court stated that the project plans and images of NewJeans and ILLIT have some similarities, but it is difficult for ILLIT to be considered a copy of NewJeans. The concept of a girl group cannot be considered an exclusive intellectual property.
The court also noted that ADOR under CEO Min Hee Jin sent an official dispatch to Belift Lab - ILLIT's management company regarding the copying accusation, showing that ADOR was not completely "out of the picture" of the problem.
The dispute between NewJeans and ADOR began last November when the group announced that they had "losed trust" and wanted to terminate their contract to work independently under the name NJZ.
ADOR objected, saying that this reason was not legally sound and had filed a lawsuit to confirm the validity of the contract, and at the same time requested an ban on NewJeans signing new advertising contracts.
After many months of unsuccessful mediation, the court officially issued a final verdict, affirming that the contract between ADOR and NewJeans is still valid, and concluded that there was no basis to determine that ILLIT copied NewJeans.
