{"id":159120,"date":"2026-02-12T05:45:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/?p=159120"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:45:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:45:52","slug":"the-seoul-court-rules-in-favor-of-min-hee-jin-in-the-dispute-with-hybe-over-illit-and-newjeans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/the-seoul-court-rules-in-favor-of-min-hee-jin-in-the-dispute-with-hybe-over-illit-and-newjeans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seoul court rules in favor of Min Hee Jin in the dispute with HYBE over ILLIT and NewJeans"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>The court supports Min Hee Jin in the put option lawsuit<\/h2>\n<p>On February 12, 2026, the <strong>Seoul Central District Court<\/strong> ruled in favor of<strong> Min Hee Jin<\/strong> in her lawsuit against HYBE regarding the exercise of a stock put option. The court ordered HYBE to pay her approximately 25.5 billion KRW (about 19.6 million USD). This case involved a dispute over whether Min\u2019s actions as ADOR&#8217;s former CEO breached her contract. In addition, the court found that her claims regarding similarities between<strong> ILLIT<\/strong> and <strong>NewJeans<\/strong> did not constitute a serious breach of contract.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n        <blockquote hcb-fetch-image-from=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NewJeans_Base\/status\/2021782824018428237?s=20\" class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Court delivers major victory to Min Hee-jin, dismisses HYBE&#39;s shareholder agreement lawsuit <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Z9f9AtszJ8\">pic.twitter.com\/Z9f9AtszJ8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NJZ Base (@NewJeans_Base) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NewJeans_Base\/status\/2021782824018428237?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 12, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n        <\/figure>\n        \n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The court addresses claims of similarity and internal reports<\/h2>\n<p>Regarding the ILLIT &#8211; NewJeans controversy, Min\u2019s legal team stated that a company employee had provided NewJeans planning materials to ILLIT\u2019s creative team during the early stages of ILLIT\u2019s development. According to the court, reports and public reactions following ILLIT\u2019s debut showed elements that could be considered similar to NewJeans. The ruling also stated that claims submitted by the parents of NewJeans members, alleging similarities with ILLIT, could not be dismissed as a misunderstanding of the situation. ILLIT is produced by Bang Si Hyuk, and the group is managed by Belift Lab.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n        <blockquote hcb-fetch-image-from=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kchartsmaster\/status\/2021786609100677160?s=20\" class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In the verdict of the HYBE\u2013Min Heejin lawsuit, the court stated that NewJeans\/ILLIT similarity claims cannot be dismissed as factual errors, noting BELIFT LAB failed to present substantial counter-evidence:<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 \u201cReports indicate that ILLIT&#39;s performance immediately after debut was\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/x43z3n9c3t\">pic.twitter.com\/x43z3n9c3t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kpop Charts (@kchartsmaster) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kchartsmaster\/status\/2021786609100677160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 12, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n        <\/figure>\n        \n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The decision highlights management responsibility<\/h2>\n<p>The court further stated that Belift Lab did not present sufficient additional evidence to clearly prove that the two groups were not similar. As a result, the controversy was considered unresolved. The judges explained that Min Hee Jin\u2019s actions fell within the scope of management decisions made to protect the value of NewJeans and ADOR. The court\u2019s ruling expressed that raising concerns about creative similarities does not represent misconduct. This decision marks an important moment in the ongoing dispute between Min Hee Jin and HYBE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The court supports Min Hee Jin in the put option lawsuit On February 12, 2026, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of Min Hee Jin in her lawsuit against HYBE regarding the exercise of a stock put option. The court ordered HYBE to pay her approximately 25.5 billion KRW (about 19.6 million USD). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3104,"featured_media":159121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2264,16,7],"tags":[3160,1747],"tmauthors":[3734],"class_list":{"0":"post-159120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-kpop","9":"category-news","10":"tag-illit","11":"tag-newjeans"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159120"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=159120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}