Min Hee-jin warns legal measures against HYBE for 'leaking private messages'

Industry

Published: 23 Jul. 2024, 20:33 Updated: 23 Jul. 2024, 20:35

Min Hee-jin warns legal measures against HYBE for 'leaking private messages'

Min Hee-jin, CEO of girl group NewJeans' agency ADOR, on July 9 [YONHAP]

Min Hee-jin warned legal measures against HYBE, Source Music and entertainment news outlet Dispatch for leaking private messages through "illegal means" on Tuesday evening while refuting a report by Dispatch that came earlier the same day.

Min also claimed that she had been undermined by Source Music, not the other way around, which was stated in the Dispatch report.

Earlier on Tuesday, Dispatch stated in a report that Min intentionally delayed the process of debuting a team of trainees — which had been referred to as Team N — so that she could take some of the trainees and debut them under her own label, instead of Source Music.

Team N was set for debut during the third quarter of 2021, with Min at the helm of branding, and another team of trainees named Team S — featuring the trainees of girl group Le Sserafim — within the first quarter of 2022 but Source Music was forced to change the order because Min had been delaying the whole process, according to the Dispatch report.

Dispatch cited KakaoTalk chats between Min and a shaman she had been consulting, which not only goes against the contract between a company and its employee but is "a grave crime," according to Min's legal attorney Shin & Kim LLC.

"The content of the report — the record of internal meetings and personal KakaoTalk chats — cannot be accessed without the help of HYBE and Source Music," the law firm said in a press release.

"Min Hee-jin handed in her laptop that she had been using three years ago after wiping out all data, so we suspect that HYBE restored the data the personal conversations she had [with others]. HYBE claims that it did not restore the data but that the data had been saved on the cloud network, which makes it even worse. This is a serious crime regarding digital records."

ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin during a press conference on May 31 [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Min requested that HYBE hand in the aforementioned laptop to police for investigation, but HYBE has been refusing to do so, according to the law firm.

Min's attorney also argued that she only ended up delaying her work because Source Music copied Min's strategy in August 2020 after HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk had turned it down earlier that year in May. Min made a complaint to Source Music CEO So Sung-jin, who "admitted to doing so," according to Shin & Kim.

The law firm disclosed an email that Shin Dong-hoon, former vice president of ADOR and a member of Min's team in 2020, sent to HYBE CEO Park Ji-won on July 13, 2021, demanding an answer on the issue but never got a reply, according to the press release.

"ADOR has the ability to release additional data, including the Slack or KakaoTalk conversations that took place between the parties involved, but will only disclose the email because we find it inappropriate to reveal the conversations between individuals," Shin & Kim said.

"We are planning to take firm legal action against all HYBE, Source Music and Disptach."

Source Music filed a 500 million won ($360,573) lawsuit against Min for defamation and disruption of business on July 15. Min has also been reported for defamation by Belift Lab, the agency of girl group ILLIT. Min called out the group for being a "NewJeans copycat."

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]