{"id":313885,"date":"2025-11-28T07:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T07:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313885\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T07:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T07:48:14","slug":"min-hee-jin-breaks-down-in-court-says-she-never-expected-hybe-to-betray-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313885\/","title":{"rendered":"Min Hee-jin breaks down in court, says she never expected HYBE to betray her"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Min<\/p>\n

Min Hee-jin, former CEO of Ador, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District on Sept. 11. Yonhap <\/p>\n

Min Hee-jin, former chief executive of NewJeans\u2019 agency, Ador, gave more than five hours of emotional testimony in court on Thursday as she and HYBE press on with their bitter legal dispute over a put option valued at roughly 26 billion won ($20 million). <\/p>\n

Min accused HYBE, the parent company of Ador, of undermining her work with NewJeans and said she never imagined the company would betray her.<\/p>\n

The Seoul Central District Court\u2019s civil division held the third hearing in the case concerning Min\u2019s attempt to invalidate the termination of the shareholders\u2019 agreement with HYBE, as well as her demand that the company honor the put option.<\/p>\n

Min, who took the stand, broke down in tears at several points during the session.<\/p>\n

Min described herself as \u201csomeone who values reputation and creative quality more than money,\u201d adding that HYBE Chairman Bang Si-hyuk had initially insisted she start Ador with zero equity in exchange for receiving trainees. <\/p>\n

She said she ultimately agreed to stock options instead and stressed that she did not enter the shareholders\u2019 agreement for financial gain.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former Ador CEO Min Hee-jin \/ Xportsnews<\/p>\n

Min claimed HYBE\u2019s internal hostility toward NewJeans grew soon after the group\u2019s rapid success. She said the public relations team failed to properly promote the group\u2019s achievements and that the advertising team tried to divert high-profile commercial offers to other labels. She also said HYBE\u2019s intellectual property and concert teams clashed with her and criticized Ador as \u201cdifficult to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Min recounted hearing that, before the debuts of Le Sserafim and NewJeans, some HYBE label heads discussed which team should succeed, claiming a senior executive said Le Sserafim \u201cmust\u201d succeed for the sake of company discipline. She said another executive privately warned her to \u201cbe careful\u201d due to jealousy and resistance.<\/p>\n

Min said that she signed the shareholders\u2019 agreement because she needed independence and a voice for her label, adding that former HYBE CEO Park Ji-won had also expressed dissatisfaction with the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never imagined Park would betray me,\u201d she said. She described the agreement\u2019s non-compete clause as \u201ca ridiculous slave contract,\u201d saying she trusted it would not be used against her.<\/p>\n

Regarding allegations that she sought to negotiate a higher multiplier for the put option \u2014 raising it from 13 times to 30 times \u2014 Min said she did not make that request herself. \u201cMy lawyer handled the negotiations. I even said [that] 13 times was fine. I did it for the work, not the money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Min also denied HYBE\u2019s accusations that she plotted to separate Ador or conspired with external parties. She dismissed a private messaging exchange \u2014 interpreted by HYBE as an attempt to take NewJeans out of the company \u2014 as \u201cHYBE\u2019s wild fiction.\u201d She said the comments were taken out of context from a casual conversation intended to vent frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is absurd [that] this turned into a legal accusation,\u201d she said. \u201cSaying something in a chat is not the same as committing a crime. That is not how the world works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Min strongly rejected the idea that ending NewJeans\u2019 contract would benefit her. \u201cWhy would I gain from that? If I had stayed quiet, I could have simply exercised the put option. I stayed because of responsibility, even though HYBE made life miserable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also criticized HYBE\u2019s decision to remove her as Ador CEO last year. \u201cWhat company fires a subsidiary CEO just ten days after the team fills the Tokyo Dome for an exceptional fan meeting? It made no sense,\u201d she said, adding that internal audits and pressure from HYBE\u2019s HR team had intensified before her dismissal.<\/p>\n

\"K-pop<\/p>\n

K-pop girl group NewJeans \/ Xportsnews<\/p>\n

Min said she eventually chose to leave despite the financial loss, noting that enduring the tiresome situation for three more months would have increased her payout. \u201cEvery day at that company felt like hell, but I stayed because of NewJeans. I believed in them and had songs ready to take them global.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she had no role in NewJeans\u2019 termination of their exclusive contract with Ador, claiming she was only informed after the parents decided. \u201cI clearly told them I had no authority to advise contract termination,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The court is scheduled to conclude hearings on Dec. 18. NewJeans, who lost their first case seeking to void the exclusive contract, have expressed intent to return to Ador. Min has since launched a new label, OOAK (One of A Kind).<\/p>\n

This article from Xportsnews is translated by generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Min Hee-jin, former CEO of Ador, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District on Sept.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-313885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}