The lawsuits sought a combined 2.5 billion won.
Koreaboo
3 hours ago
Former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin has come out on top in court against HYBE labels BELIFT LAB and Source Music.
On November 13, Korean media reported that the Seoul Western District Court dismissed damages lawsuits filed against Min Hee Jin by BELIFT LAB and Source Music, which sought a combined ₩2.50 billion KRW (about $1.87 million USD).
The lawsuits trace back to Min Hee Jin’s explosive April 2024 press conference, where she claimed ILLIT had copied NewJeans.
BELIFT LAB sued for ₩2.00 billion KRW (about $1.50 million USD) in June that year, calling the allegation false and damaging. The court, however, disagreed. It found that Min Hee Jin’s remarks were closer to opinions than statements of fact, as there are no fixed rules for deciding whether one pop culture work copies another.
Source Music, LE SSERAFIM‘s agency, also sued for ₩500 million KRW (about $374,000 USD) in July 2024 over Min Hee Jin’s claims that she recruited the NewJeans members and that a promise to debut them as “HYBE’s first girl group” was broken.
Again, the court sided with Min Hee Jin, finding that she was describing her influence on the recruitment, not claiming she found the members alone. Records also showed Source Music originally planned to debut the NewJeans members first, before launching LE SSERAFIM over Min’s strong objections.
As part of the ruling, BELIFT LAB and Source Music were ordered to pay all court costs for their claims.
In the same ruling, the court also threw out Min Hee Jin’s own ₩5.00 billion KRW (about $3.74 million USD) counterclaim against BELIFT LAB, which argued that ILLIT’s “imitation” lowered the value of NewJeans and cost her performance bonuses. The court ruled NewJeans’ success was the joint work of several companies and belongs to ADOR and others rather than Min Hee Jin personally. As a result, Min Hee Jin will also pay the litigation costs for her own claim.