11 Months After Leaving ADOR
As the first trial verdict approaches in the exclusive contract dispute between the group NewJeans and their agency ADOR, Min Hee-jin, the former CEO who produced NewJeans, has established a new entertainment agency.
According to legal sources on the 24th, Min recently founded an entertainment agency called "OOAK Co., Ltd." and completed the corporate registration on the 16th.
Min has been registered as an internal director of the new agency. According to the corporate registry, the company's business purposes include more than 20 categories, such as celebrity management services, music and album production and distribution, concert and event planning and production, brand management services, advertising agency services, and manufacturing of electronic and recorded media publications.
The corporate office is registered in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and it is reported that a building is currently under construction at the site. The capital is 30 million won.
This is Min's first official move since stepping down as an internal director of ADOR in November last year.
Since April last year, Min had been embroiled in a management rights dispute with ADOR's parent company HYBE, and was dismissed from the CEO position in August of the same year. After also resigning as an internal director and completely leaving the company, she is currently engaged in a lawsuit against HYBE, claiming approximately 26 billion won for a put option (stock purchase claim), as well as a lawsuit related to the termination of a shareholders’ agreement.
During this process, the NewJeans members demanded Min's return and declared the termination of their exclusive contract with ADOR. At a press conference in November last year, the members stated that "ADOR did not comply with the corrective requests," announced a change of their team name to "NJZ," and attempted to pursue independent activities. However, the court granted an injunction prohibiting the maintenance of agency status and the signing of advertising contracts, resulting in the suspension of all commercial activities. According to the injunction, if the members engage in activities without ADOR’s approval, they must pay 1 billion won per member per incident in damages.
Currently, the NewJeans members are only sharing updates through social networking services (SNS), except for attending court hearings.
Meanwhile, the first trial verdict in the lawsuit filed by ADOR to confirm the validity of the exclusive contract is scheduled for the 30th.
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