Min Hee Jin Suspected Of Illegal Tampering In NJZ’s (NewJeans) Contract Termination With ADOR

According to evidence presented by ADOR in court, former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin is suspected of interfering with NJZ‘s (NewJeans) decision to terminate their agency contracts.

This new development upholds the accusation of “tampering,” which refers to the act of a third party getting involved with an artist without their agency’s consent when the contract between the artist and the agency is still in effect.

On March 11, when NJZ appeared in Seoul Central District Court for the first round of interrogations regarding their lawsuit with ADOR, the agency presented documents that confirmed that Min Hee Jin and her legal representatives at the Sejeong Law Firm were involved in the process of NJZ notifying ADOR about their contract termination. Specifically, the termination notice sent by NJZ, which was in a PDF format, was authored by the law firm. ADOR pointed out that the company’s English name, “S&K,” was present in the metadata of the PDF file, indicating that the notice was created using a corporate account.

On November 28, just a day before the termination notice was sent by NJZ, the group held an emergency press conference and suddenly announced that they were terminating their contracts with ADOR. But at that time, they also stated that they hadn’t appointed any legal representation yet. It wasn’t until January 2025 that they officially declared Sejeong as their legal counsel, reasoning that they were familiar with the firm due to past disputes involving ADOR and HYBE.

ADOR also pointed out the timeline of events to establish the allegation of tampering against Min. NJZ formally requested corrective actions from ADOR on November 14, 2024, and on November 20, Min resigned as ADOR CEO. Then, on November 28, NJZ announced the contract termination before the deadline for responding to their request for corrective action, which was November 29 at midnight.

As evidence, ADOR presented Kakaotalk conversations and emails retrieved from Min’s phone and the exact same statements used by Sejeong from a prior case between her and ADOR in May 2024. In the process, there were some inconsistencies, such as the phrase “early this year” in the filing, which should have been updated to “early last year.”

If the tampering accusations are proven true, it can potentially affect the injunction result. The court will conclude the hearing on the matter on March 14. All necessary evidence and materials must be submitted by then. Additionally, NJZ’s representatives have been requested to reorganize and submit a list of reasons for terminating the exclusive contract.

You can read more about NJZ’s recent court appearance here:

NJZ (NewJeans) Hanni’s Behavior Criticized After Leaving Court