{"id":802017,"date":"2026-10-14T05:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T05:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802017\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T05:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T05:50:11","slug":"min-hee-jin-referred-to-prosecutors-over-illit-plagiarism-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802017\/","title":{"rendered":"Min Hee-jin referred to prosecutors over Illit plagiarism claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/d9177408-f52d-48e1-afd1-af8bf9ae741b.jpg\" style=\"height: auto; aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1280; width: 100%\" alt=\"Min Hee-jin, former CEO of HYBE sublabel Ador, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, April 25, 2024. Korea Times photo by Simon Park \" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Min Hee-jin, former CEO of HYBE sublabel Ador, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, April 25, 2024. Korea Times photo by Simon Park <\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Min Hee-jin, former CEO of HYBE subsidiary Ador, has been referred to prosecutors on suspicion of defamation and obstruction of business over her claims that HYBE girl group Illit copied NewJeans, a girl group she had nurtured. <\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">The Yongsan Police Station in Seoul confirmed Tuesday that it had sent the case to prosecutors on Oct. 1, believing Min spread false plagiarism claims to disparage HYBE and Illit&#8217;s label, Belift Lab. Two former Ador vice presidents were also referred on the same allegations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Min first raised the allegations in April 2024, claiming Illit had copied NewJeans&#8217; debut strategy, choreography and visual concept. Belift Lab filed a criminal complaint against her the following month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Courts evaluating the disputes have so far declined to recognize the plagiarism claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">In March 2025, ruling on Ador&#8217;s injunction request to confirm its status as NewJeans&#8217; agency, a court said it was difficult to view Illit&#8217;s concept as a copy of NewJeans. <\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">In October 2025, a court upholding NewJeans&#8217; exclusive contracts with Ador found some similarities in the groups&#8217; internal documents and photo shoots but not enough evidence that Illit had copied NewJeans&#8217; concept.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3daf08f6-0b94-4335-9606-bb389613ce08.png\" style=\"height: auto; aspect-ratio: 1249 \/ 832; width: 100%\" alt=\"From left are K-pop girl group Illit members Yunah, Moka, Wonhee, Iroha and Minju. Courtesy of Belift Lab\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>From left are K-pop girl group Illit members Yunah, Moka, Wonhee, Iroha and Minju. Courtesy of Belift Lab<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">In a statement released on Wednesday, Min, now CEO of ooak records, called the referral \u201cmerely a provisional judgment by an investigative agency,\u201d not an indictment or a court ruling. She noted that the same police station had previously declined to refer a separate HYBE complaint against her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">Min also accused HYBE&#8217;s labels of stalling damages suits against her. She said Belift Lab&#8217;s suit at the Seoul Western District Court, heard for more than two years and set for a ruling on Nov. 13, was disrupted when the label filed a motion to reopen arguments citing the police referral. <\/p>\n<p class=\"editor-p\">\u201cA large corporation is mobilizing vast legal resources to abuse litigation as a delay tactic, burdening an individual with prolonged fatigue and pressure,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Min Hee-jin, former CEO of HYBE sublabel Ador, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, April 25, 2024.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}