K-pop group NewJeans has lost a legal battle to leave its record label Ador.<\/p>\n
A South Korean court on Tuesday ruled that the act’s contract with the label, which runs until 2029, remains valid.<\/p>\n
The group’s five members – Hanni, Hyein, Haerin, Danielle and Minji – announced last year that they were unilaterally leaving the agency, citing mistreatment and manipulation.<\/p>\n
The group has said it will appeal the ruling, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s ruling follows a year-long standoff between the chart-topping group and its agency.<\/p>\n
The group’s dramatic announcement, which was made in November last year during a press conference, came after a long and public spat between the group’s mentor Min Hee-ji, and Ador, as well as its parent company, Hybe – South Korea’s biggest music label, whose client list includes K-pop royalty such as BTS and Seventeen.<\/p>\n
The case stunned South Korea where record labels wield large amounts of power and tightly control their stars. It is highly unusual for bands to rebel against them. <\/p>\n
Tensions between Min and Hybe started in April 2024, when Hybe launched audits into Ador, which was then managed by Min, while calling her to step down.<\/p>\n
Min rejected Hybe’s allegations that she was plotting to go independent. In August, she was dismissed as the CEO of Ador.<\/p>\n
The band soon issued an ultimatum demanding that Min be reinstated. When Hybe refused, the members went public with a series of complaints against the label, including claims it had deliberately undermined their careers.<\/p>\n
One of the group’s members, Hanni, also alleged that she suffered workplace harassment while working with the label.<\/p>\n
As the disputes continued, the group’s five members attemped to rebrand themselves as NJZ in March. They released a new song and performed at a show in Hong Kong, before their independent activities were halted by a court order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"K-pop group NewJeans has lost a legal battle to leave its record label Ador. A South Korean court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-260014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}