A court in Seoul last week asked the members of K-pop group NewJeans – or NJZ if you prefer – to restructure and revise their list of reasons for terminating their contract with HYBE agency Ador and to provide stronger evidence to back up each of their claims.
That’s despite the group and their lawyers submitting a 93 slide PowerPoint presentation to the court on Friday. That was during a session considering a request from Ador for an injunction stopping NewJeans from entering into any new deals while the legal dispute over their contract with the group goes through the motions.
Then again, Ador responded with a 229 slide deck, so maybe the judge felt NewJeans should have the opportunity to pad out their presentation. Or perhaps he was actually looking for something more concise. Or he just felt that NewJeans should be able to respond to Ador’s mega-deck.
Those 229 slides outlined all the investments Ador and HYBE have made into NewJeans to date, while also responding to claims that the agency and its parent company set out to sabotage the group. Those claims aren’t backed up by the evidence, Ador argued, and are ridiculous given the scale of the investments it has made, because sabotaging NewJeans would prevent it from getting a return.
According to The Korea Herald, the lawyers claimed that HYBE has invested 21 billion won, about $14.5 million, into NewJeans, which they said was “an unprecedented amount for a single group”. Not only that, but “more than 50 staff members – including stylists, choreographers, video directors and managers – were dedicated exclusively to NewJeans’ success from their trainee days”.
That big investment has paid off, Ador added, with the group “generating significant revenue since 2023”. The group’s members, as well as Ador, have benefited from that success, the lawyers insisted, revealing – according to allkpop – that “each member has received 5 billion won”, or about $3.75 million.
The group’s 93 slides mainly ran through the various grievances they have previously raised about Ador and HYBE, grievances which the group’s members began talking about publicly last autumn after HYBE pushed Ador founder Min Hee-jin out of the CEO job at the agency.
Those grievances include, according to the group’s lawyers, “HYBE’s extensive media play” against NewJeans and “its plans to replace NewJeans with a new group”.
Plus the allegations that another HYBE group, Illit, plagiarised NewJeans, and the various issues between Ador and Dolphiners Films, which produced music videos for the group. None of these things, the lawyers insisted, “happened to other HYBE artists”.
According to Times Of India, Ador’s legal team strongly disputed the allegation that the agency was considering dropping NewJeans, saying that that claim began with a misinterpreted internal document from a former executive at HYBE subsidiary Weverse. They also alleged that former CEO Min had selectively edited certain company documents to mislead the courts about the intent of Ador and HYBE.
NewJeans announced they were terminating their Ador deal last November. The agency insists the group has no right to terminate the deal and is seeking to enforce its contract.
The injunction request that was the subject of last week’s hearing initially sought to stop NewJeans, now performing as NJZ, from entering into any new brand deals without Ador’s involvement. However, the agency recently expanded the request to cover all music and entertainment activities.
Responding to the injunction request more specifically, and in very emotive terms, the group said in a statement last week, “Ador is now demanding that we remain under their control until the court rules on contract termination. This essentially forces us into a ‘slave contract’ where we are bound to an agency that has already abandoned us”.
The judge gave the group until Friday to submit their revised reasons for ending the Ador deal.