Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Following Min Hee Jin’s injunction lawsuit win against HYBE, both the company and her lawyers released statements, which seemed to hint at where the HYBE/ADOR battle will end up next.
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Predictably, HYBE has accepted the court’s decision, but will explore other legal options in response.
“Our company respects the court’s decision regarding the provisional injunction lawsuit filed by CEO Min Hee Jin and will not exercise voting rights in favor of the ‘Dismissal of Inside Director Min Hee Jin’ at the upcoming extraordinary meeting of shareholders.
Furthermore, as the court has clearly stated in this decision that ‘it is evident that Min Hee Jin sought ways to weaken HYBE’s control over ADOR and allow Min Hee Jin to control ADOR independently by either taking NewJeans out of HYBE’s control or pressuring HYBE to sell its shares in ADOR,’ our company plans to proceed with subsequent steps within the boundaries set by the law.”
This will likely be an appeal and, of course, they’ll continue with their criminal charges and other lawsuits.
I say it’s obvious that they accept it because going through with firing her anyway would not only cost them the 20 billion won penalty, but also leaves them vulnerable to having to pay out for her stock options and provides ammo for some kind of wrongful termination lawsuit.
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Meanwhile, Min Hee Jin’s lawyers have released a statement as well. Other than confirming things that have been previously reported, they reveal that HYBE submitted documents 11 times and they responded nine times. They claim that the court’s decision shows HYBE’s “reckless witch hunt” wasn’t accurate. They state that the voting rights in the shareholders’ agreement (for five years) were clear, and that the injunction was granted shows HYBE had no just cause for dismissal.
Her lawyers go on to reiterate that the KakaoTalk logs were illegally obtained and were maliciously edited, and they’re planning to take legal action against those editing the messages and spreading them in videos.
Perhaps most relevantly in all this, they claim that HYBE terminating any of the other ADOR executives would also be a violation of the shareholders’ agreement.
“In addition, since there is no reason for CEO Min Hee Jin to be dismissed, there is also no reason for the two other directors besides CEO Min Hee Jin to be dismissed. If HYBE dismisses the above directors, it would be disrespecting the court’s decision and firing them without just cause.”
That might be an interesting fight to watch because the assumption of many was that HYBE would indeed fire her executives and basically box her in at ADOR due to the fact that the injunction only covers her. If they can’t manage to do that, then it seems like they’d be in real trouble since ADOR could just continue on business as usual unless HYBE can score bigger legal wins.
