Hearing Held for Injunction to Prohibit Exercise of Voting Rights (2024Kahap20635)
The Civil Agreement Division 50 of the Seoul Central District Court held a hearing lasting approximately one hour and 30 minutes on CEO Min Hee-jin’s application for an injunction to prohibit HYBE from exercising its voting rights.
The shareholders’ agreement explicitly stipulates a five-year term for maintaining the CEO position, and HYBE’s claim of an attempted management takeover is nothing but an absurd allegation based on cherry-picked KakaoTalk conversations. Since there was no attempt to seize management control, this does not constitute grounds for dismissal.
HYBE is claiming that Min Hee-jin’s second internal whistleblowing email constitutes breach of fiduciary duty by diminishing ADOR’s value. However, as CEO, neglecting to address the infringement of NewJeans’ rights would be the breach of fiduciary duty—not attempting to rectify it. Rather, she faithfully fulfilled her duty of care. All the issues she raised had legitimate grounds.
HYBE’s criminal complaint is based on absurd claims with no evidence other than KakaoTalk messages, and Min Hee-jin fulfilled her duty of care.
The shareholders’ agreement states that her resignation can be demanded in cases where CEO Min causes damages of 1 billion won or more to ADOR, or commits illegal acts such as breach of fiduciary duty or embezzlement.
As long as grounds for dismissal exist, there is no contractual obligation to maintain the CEO position.
Although she agreed not to engage in activities that could cause damage to subsidiary labels, she violated the shareholders’ agreement through countless violations. (Citing KakaoTalk messages as evidence, including: CEO Min’s claims that “ILLIT is a NewJeans copy”; her inconsistent attitude toward NewJeans members; allegations that she has effectively been gaslighting the NewJeans members; that she used the members’ parents as pawns during the management takeover preparations; and that she conspired to terminate NewJeans’ exclusive contracts and file rights infringement lawsuits to turn ADOR into an empty shell.)