Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Following the news that Min Hee Jin was removed as CEO of ADOR by HYBE, there’s been a bunch of updates on the HYBE/ADOR conflict related to that decision. However, probably the biggest ongoing concern is the potential downstream impact of the move to NewJeans, which hasn’t exactly been allayed after one of their frequent collaborators recently spoke up.
======
So let’s start with Shin Wooseok, the director of many NewJeans videos and owner of Dolphiners Films. He recently spoke up and claimed that after the change in ADOR management, content related to NewJeans had to be removed and future works they had planned had to be scrapped. He emphasized that the content in question was mainly used as archival work, and that channels like (Ban Heesoo) were not monetized and his company did not profit.
The most distressing part to fans, other than the channel’s connection to “Ditto” and the group’s lore, was the impact it may have had on future releases.
Shin also expressed regret, saying, “There were projects we had promised to work on with NewJeans in the future, but we are unable to fulfill them. I feel sorry for the staff who worked tirelessly for months and, most importantly, for the fans who were eagerly waiting.”
According to another SNS update from Shin, various NewJeans videos, including “ETA Directors’ Cut” and Apple’s ‘iPhone 14 Pro Global Commercial”, among others, which were supposed to be published on the YouTube channels Dolphiners Films. and Ban Hee-soo, will thus not be released.
ADOR later responded by denying his claim, saying content like a Director’s Cut was deleted as a result of a dispute with an advertiser, denying that any policy has changed and accusing them of breach of contract and spreading of false information. They end by saying they’ll work to upload the deleted content to official channels.
Effectively then, ADOR is claiming this was just some kind of miscommunication, but Shin Wooseok then responded on social media. He explained that the Director’s Cut was agreed upon to be uploaded by everybody who produced it and that he recently reaffirmed as much. He questions the dragging of unrelated third parties into things and accuses ADOR of media manipulation, then gets specific that ADOR requested the videos to be deleted because they could only be released on official accounts.
“On Sunday evening, they unilaterally threatened that if the videos were not deleted by Monday morning, they would send a formal notice to Dolphin Kidnapper and demand double the service fee as a penalty. But now, what are they saying? Did they only discover the existence of the Ban Hee-soo channel after the deletion?”
Shin questioned, “Which director in the world would destroy their own work? Why would I do that? The Ban Hee-soo channel was an extension of the work ‘Ditto’ that I directed, and it was a channel and videos I created voluntarily without any compensation for the fans. Are they now claiming that I suddenly deleted everything without any motivation?”
As I understand things currently, the dispute is effectively that HYBE/ADOR are now trying to exert complete control over all their IP, and appear to be claiming that things agreed to with Min Hee Jin in charge are no longer valid. Meanwhile, Shin Wooseok is saying this is simply them being petty retribution because he supported Min Hee Jin and won’t work with other HYBE groups, and is pissed that this screws up hard work that they had planned with NewJeans going forward.
It’s not at all hard for me to believe that HYBE/ADOR would be involved in scuttling projects that were agreed to unofficially and want to take control now that Min Hee Jin is gone, but I think the reason the takedown request communication and/or contract hasn’t been revealed yet by Shin Wooseok and them is because the creatives were working with a verbal understanding more than anything official. Thus, this is really about HYBE/ADOR taking advantage of the fact that they have legal recourse for this move and they don’t care if it screws things up for NewJeans and others. If that assumption is right, they might be legally correct, but it’s another one of those things that’s obviously not going to endear them to creatives. Basically, I understand that HYBE/ADOR likely have the right to do this … but why do this at all or why do this without immediate reuploading plans? It’s hard to imagine this doing anything but causing trouble for them.
Overall, it’s a situation worth monitoring, and I think people are understandably hypervigilant about any potential retribution that HYBE (and the new ADOR) might have for NewJeans, but unless something official does exist, I’m not sure exactly what Shin Wooseok, Min Hee Jin, NewJeans or the other creatives can do, exactly. I suppose that’s the impetus behind making this all public, as calling attention to the alleged behavior of HYBE/ADOR management might be the only recourse option for them at this point.
——
On the Min Hee Jin front — other than the already coming legal battle over her shareholder agreement being terminated — after her removal as CEO, ADOR appointed her to continue producing for NewJeans, but her side said their problem with it was that it was only a two-month contract.
They further claimed, “The proposal to continue handling production, as communicated through the media, is one-sided and unreasonable, making it difficult to understand from a common-sense perspective.” They pointed out the following issues:
1. An extremely short two-month production contract.
2. A clause allowing ADOR’s board (HYBE) to unilaterally terminate the contract at any time.
ADOR then responded, claiming that her role as internal director only lasts until November 1st, and that the termination clause is a safeguard.
There’s not a ton to say here because I think it’s something that’s clearly going to be won or loss legally. This is about tens of millions of dollars, which is what I can always trust people caring the most about, so it’ll be settled in court.
That said, given that HYBE has already lost the temporary injunction case, I’m curious to see how they’re going to argue this is materially different and they’re justified in doing this. And yeah, I do think they absolutely need to sweep the cases to prove their point, not based on my own feelings but really based on their own words.
At the end of yesterday’s salvo, HYBE said they would expose Min Hee Jin in court, “One by one, her lies are being exposed by evidence and facts. We expect everything to be clearly determined by investigative agencies and the courts.“
They can’t pull an APRIL and then still claim they were in the right, for example.
Speaking of which, HYBE also lost their request to restrict access to the records from the injunction trial.
We shall see.
——
On the front of the sexual harassment/power harassment case, new ADOR CEO Kim Joo Young has said that they’re reinvestigating the charges.
Regarding the allegations of workplace sexual harassment and bullying, as well as attempts to cover up the incident, a reinvestigation will be conducted to uncover the truth and establish measures to prevent recurrence.
That’s fine, but is it not weird to anybody else that nobody has made a stink about her being at least in charge of the HYBE’s HR department when all that happened in March of this year?
The new CEO Kim is the chief HR officer of HYBE. She formerly served as the head of the HR department at game publisher Krafton and household goods manufacturer Yuhan-Kimberly until she joined HYBE in May 2022.
When I talked about some of the responsibility for the employee’s plight being on HYBE as well as Min Hee Jin, we’re likely literally talking about her. To me, HYBE is in a no-win scenario here as well, because it’s either they were more than happy to overlook things or not do due diligence for the employee while they were on better terms with Min Hee Jin or they end up agreeing with Min Hee Jin’s position again.
I guess I kinda don’t understand why it’s not an issue, as I haven’t even seen Min Hee Jin’s side bring it up.
======
As I think I’ve made quite clear in my coverage so far, I don’t have much love for either side of the executive battle, and mostly I feel bad for those downstream of this fight who have to deal with the fallout. The faces of this are inevitably going to be the idols, with NewJeans now potentially seeing a spiteful HYBE/ADOR front now in charge of their futures. It’s a valid concern.
That said, I honestly do wonder if HYBE/ADOR can even afford to purposefully tank NewJeans. They’re a publicly traded company, ADOR is a successful subsidiary and NewJeans is a marquee group, so to sabotage them would be to risk serious financial consequences if not a loss of power. That said, K-pop companies have been known to do far worse for the sake of their egos and sending a message to any others who would challenge their power, and assuming competent decision making and/or PR from HYBE at this point seems foolish.
