🔗 2024-07-23 ADOR Official Statement (Full Text) Regarding Dispatch Article

Hello, this is ADOR.

We are conveying ADOR’s position on the article published by Dispatch today.

The content of the article in question consists of false information reconstructed based on speculation, and we will be taking strong legal action.

The contents covered in the report—including internal meeting minutes, work assignments, and personal KakaoTalk conversations—would be impossible to address without HYBE and Source Music’s cooperation with the coverage and provision of false information.

In particular, exposing to the public without permission the personal information of trainees whose contracts have already ended and artists who have since moved to other agencies, along with leaking various data that breaches confidentiality including medical records and demos, constitutes a breach of contract and a serious offense. The trainee contracts between Source Music and NewJeans members have already ended, and those contracts did not include any provisions permitting the use of the trainees’ likeness, voice, or other attributes. Therefore, Source Music’s release of trainee footage through media outlets is a very serious illegal act that infringes on the NewJeans members’ right of publicity, and we request that immediate measures be taken to protect the artists.

Furthermore, we criticize the shamefully immoral conduct—beyond mere incompetence—of HYBE for providing Dispatch with report content and materials that defame a subsidiary’s CEO by illegally obtaining private messenger conversations between individuals and having a third party release them without authorization while editing them falsely to suit their intentions, and we will be taking strong legal action.

Contrary to the Dispatch article, the claim that N Team’s debut was indefinitely delayed due to CEO Min Hee-jin’s negligence is very different from the actual facts. Therefore, to correct the fabricated content, we are releasing an email from 2021 that shows the situation at that time. The “CBO office PT materials” mentioned in this email refer to the [NewJeans Planning Draft], which was the initial concept for the team tentatively called “N Team” or “2021 Team” at the time. This PT material was created by CEO Min Hee-jin, who was serving as CBO at the time, and this occurred during a situation where there were many disagreements about the concept for a new girl group that was being developed as a three-way joint venture.

The timeline is as follows:

1) March 2020: Big Hit’s marketing team proposed a launch strategy for the “2021 Team”
→ However, CEO Min Hee-jin, who was Creative Director at the time, judged that the direction of the content was not appropriate, so CEO Min Hee-jin separately prepared her own launch strategy.

2) May 2020: CEO Min Hee-jin presented her launch strategy (as it was during the three-way joint venture period, Chairman Bang Si-hyuk, So Sung-jin, and Source Music representatives attended)
→ Chairman Bang Si-hyuk responded that CEO Min Hee-jin’s PT proposal was quite excellent but unconventional (described exactly as expressed at the time), and that it seemed difficult to implement with Source Music’s infrastructure, so it would be better to proceed under CEO Min Hee-jin’s label.

3) August 2020: Source Music re-proposed an advance planning proposal
→ It substantially copied CEO Min Hee-jin’s launch strategy from May
→ We complained to Source Music and So Sung-jin, and they acknowledged this.

🔗 2021-07-13 Email from ADOR (CBO Office) → HYBE (Park Ji-won)

As shown in the email content, NewJeans’ launch strategy, which Source Music had said would be difficult to implement, was being copied by Source Music and discussed again, and discussions on each company’s roles and responsibilities and production timeline inevitably faced difficulties. ADOR (then CBO Office) did not receive a reply to this email. We are releasing this because sharing official emails that everyone involved had access to at the time is far more accurate for understanding the context and determining right from wrong than the selectively edited materials provided by HYBE, which is making false claims. ADOR has Slack conversations and KakaoTalk conversation records among the relevant parties from that time and could provide additional materials as evidence, but we are only releasing the email for now as we judged that releasing private conversations might be inappropriate.

We cannot understand HYBE, which continues to engage in falsehoods and fabrications despite the existence of documents and witnesses from that time, and despite the fact that the parents and members who experienced it firsthand are witnesses themselves.

We are especially dismayed that they committed such illegal acts the very next day after we, together with NewJeans’ legal guardians, clearly issued a stern warning regarding serious illegalities committed by HYBE PR just yesterday that have not yet been disclosed to the public. HYBE’s legal team sent a formal notice to CEO Min Hee-jin last May asking her not to disclose private KakaoTalk conversations she had with Chairman Bang Si-hyuk and CEO Park Ji-won. Yet why do they commit such thoughtless acts against ADOR?

CEO Min Hee-jin initialized and returned the aforementioned laptop to HYBE three years ago, and we strongly suspect that HYBE forensically examined this laptop to recover personal conversations. This constitutes a serious crime and illegal act corresponding to unauthorized examination of electronic records. However, HYBE claims they did not perform forensic examination and that the KakaoTalk conversations were stored on HYBE’s cloud server. But this is an even more serious problem. It means HYBE was routinely collecting personal conversations, storing them on their server, and then leaked them—which constitutes serious crimes and illegal acts violating the Protection of Communications Secrets Act and the Information and Communications Network Act (breach of confidentiality). HYBE’s actions are unconstitutional acts that seriously violate the freedom of privacy and freedom of communication.

ADOR’s CEO Min Hee-jin has already submitted her laptop, which she did not need to submit since it belongs to ADOR, to the police for complete resolution of any suspicions. And for a transparent investigation, CEO Min Hee-jin requested that the police retrieve and investigate the laptop in HYBE’s possession. However, HYBE claims that the relevant materials are stored on the company’s server/cloud rather than from laptop forensics and is not cooperating with police submission.

Forensically examining a laptop without the owner’s consent is itself a serious crime, but having personal conversations stored on the company’s server constitutes an even greater offense. Separately, if the data truly exists on the server, they should faithfully cooperate with the police’s request for cooperation.

ADOR and NewJeans’ legal guardians are seriously angered by the numerous irrational media plays and responses HYBE is currently engaging in and are considering countermeasures.

Since the entire content of the article was written based on false information, rebuttal is meaningless to that extent. We state once again that the complete distortion and fabrication of the overall facts and timeline constitutes serious defamation and obstruction of business against ADOR, NewJeans, and CEO Min Hee-jin.

We warn HYBE’s executives to stop the unnecessary persecution of their subsidiary immediately, cease creating unnecessary disputes, actively cooperate with the police investigation, and refrain from committing any further illegal acts. We hope they realize this is their responsibility and duty to shareholders.