{"id":287976,"date":"2026-02-12T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/287976\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:46:10","slug":"court-orders-hybe-to-pay-17-7-mil-to-ex-ceo-of-ador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/287976\/","title":{"rendered":"Court orders HYBE to pay $17.7 mil. to ex-CEO of Ador"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/f8e62f7a-04a1-4117-ac4c-7fcfca451e55.jpg\" style=\"height: auto; aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1280; width: 100%\" alt=\"Min Hee-jin, then CEO of Ador, holds a press conference on Ador's shareholders' agreement in Jung-gu, Seoul, May 31. Yonhap\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Min Hee-jin, then CEO of Ador, holds a press conference on Ador&#8217;s shareholders&#8217; agreement in Jung-gu, Seoul, May 31. Yonhap<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\"> A court on Thursday dismissed K-pop powerhouse Hybe&#8217;s lawsuit seeking to confirm the termination of its shareholders&#8217; agreement with Min Hee-jin, the former CEO of a Hybe subsidiary named ADOR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">The Seoul Central District Court also ruled that Hybe has to pay 25.5 billion won ($17.7 million) worth of put options to Min because of the validity of the shareholders&#8217; agreement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Hybe was also ordered by the court to pay 1.7 billion won and 1.4 billion won, respectively, to two former ADOR executives for the same reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Hybe has argued that the termination of the shareholders&#8217; contract is valid because Min violated it by seeking to end girl group NewJeans&#8217; agency contract with ADOR and pushing for an initial public offering for ADOR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">The court ruled that Min probably sought ways to make ADOR independent from Hybe but the circumstances cannot be considered a serious breach of the shareholders&#8217; agreement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Min expressed &#8220;deep respect&#8221; for the decision and said she would &#8220;humbly accept&#8221; it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">&#8220;I will focus all my capabilities on building a stable management environment, maximizing the value of the artist, and nurturing new talent to lead the K-pop industry,&#8221; added Min, who now leads Ooak Records, an independent label.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">She later issued a separate statement, saying, &#8220;I want to put an end to these exhausting disputes in my life, and surprise everyone again with great music and performances.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Hybe said it will appeal the ruling, stating, &#8220;It is regrettable that our arguments were not fully accepted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">The conflict between Hybe and Min began in April 2024 and Min was dismissed as CEO of ADOR in August of that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Three months later, Min notified Hybe of her intent to exercise her put option. A put option is a contract that entitles the owner to sell a specific security by a set date at a set price. At that time, upon exercising her put option, Min would have received from Hybe an amount equal to 75 percent of her stake in ADOR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">In a related development, NewJeans, which Min produced, terminated its contract with ADOR, saying her dismissal represented the breakdown of bilateral trust. But a court ruled last October that the exclusive contract between NewJeans and ADOR is valid. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Min Hee-jin, then CEO of Ador, holds a press conference on Ador&#8217;s shareholders&#8217; agreement in Jung-gu, Seoul, May&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-287976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}