ADOR won't reinstate Min but will offer board seat, NewJeans agency says

ADOR announced Wednesday it won't be reinstating former CEO Min Hee-jin but may let her stay as a board member in what seems to be a sign of compromise from the NewJeans agency.

Min Hee-jin on May 31 [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

HYBE may finally be ready to call a truce with Min Hee-jin.

ADOR announced Wednesday it won't be reinstating former CEO Min Hee-jin but may let her stay as a board member in what seems to be a sign of compromise from the NewJeans agency.

“We have decided to convene a shareholder meeting to vote for Min Hee-jin to stay on the board," ADOR said in a statement.

"We have already made an offer to Min Hee-jin to stay on as the producer of NewJeans for the next five years, which is the whole duration of the girl group's contract [with ADOR]."

"We look forward to talking through the detailed conditions of the deal in the future," added the agency.

The announcement comes on the deadline set by the NewJeans members, who issued an ultimatum to the agency in a livestream on Sept. 11, demanding it to reinstate Min.

Members of girl group NewJeans in a livestream held Sept. 11 on YouTube [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The day after the livestream, HYBE’s CEO Lee Jae-sang stated at a shareholder meeting that the company would take "calm measures based on principles."

On Sept. 13, Min filed for an injunction with the Seoul Central District Court requesting ADOR to convene a shareholder meeting to vote for her to continue sitting on the board, during which she could fight for her seat as CEO. Min’s term as a board member is set to end on Nov. 2 without an extension.

Prior to HYBE’s decision, industry insiders are speculating that NewJeans could be getting ready to file for an injunction on their exclusive contracts with ADOR. Standard contracts signed by K-pop artists state that a company has two weeks to fix a clause in a contract or make other necessary changes before the artists take the case to court.

If the court sides with the NewJeans members, they can join another agency of their choosing and start their own activities separate from ADOR. However, they will not be able to use the NewJeans group name without ADOR’s permission because it is owned by the agency.

Should the court side with ADOR and HYBE, then NewJeans will have to pay to break their contracts at cost of up to 320 billion won ($240 million).

The contract dictates that artists must pay the agency the group's average monthly revenue over the past two years, multiplied by the number of months left on the contract. ADOR, which only manages NewJeans, made 110.28 billion won in revenue in 2023 and 13.64 billion won in 2022. NewJeans debuted in July 2022, giving the girl group approximately five more years to go on their contracts.

NewJeans has not released a statement regarding the issue.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]