On the 8th, the Kang & Park Lawyers’ Channel posted a video titled ‘The reason why we may not see New Genes until 2027.’ Lawyers Kang Ho-seok and Park Geon-ho expressed their legal opinion on the dispute regarding the exclusive contract between New Genes and their agency Adore.
New Jeans declared independent activities in November last year, saying that its exclusive contract was terminated due to Adore’s violation of the contract. However, the first trial court recently ruled in favor of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by Adore against the members to confirm the validity of the exclusive contract. The court ruled that the relationship of trust cannot be seen as broken because New Genes’ unreasonable demands, including the return of former Adore CEO Min Hee, were not accepted. Rather, former CEO Min started the public opinion war as a means for independence, not for the purpose of protecting New Genes. Accordingly, New Genes declared that it would immediately appeal.
Lawyers Kang and Park analyzed that “if New Genes appeals, they will lose 100%.” This is because there is no possibility that the second trial will produce conclusive evidence that can overturn the judgment of the first trial.
Lawyers Kang and Park said, “If New Genes drags the trial all the way to the Supreme Court, it will be impossible to operate until 2027. New Jeans becomes Old Jeans. Afterwards, it was seen that a lawsuit claiming damages from Hive may follow. According to the first trial ruling, the exclusive contract period between New Jeans and Adore is valid until July 31, 2029. However, the more New Jeans drags out the lawsuit, the longer the contract period becomes, and in the end, they have to remain in Adore, missing out on the golden time to be active as a girl group.
Moreover, the economic responsibility that Newgenes must bear is significant. This lawsuit is worth 250 million won, and Adore will pay about 12.262 million won, including court taxes, delivery fees, and attorney fees. However, New Genes has already added Park Hyeong-nam, CEO of Seungwoon Law Firm, to the 13 lawyers from Sejong, a large law firm. Attorneys Kang and Park estimated that the actual attorney fees alone would have been 100 million won per person.
This trial cast a dark cloud over the future of former CEO Min, who had called herself ‘New Jeans’ mother’.
Former CEO Min is in the process of a put option trial worth 26 billion won against Hive. Former CEO Min claimed that he exercised his legitimate rights according to the shareholder contract, and Hive argued that because the shareholder contract was terminated due to former CEO Min’s actions such as breach of trust, the right to exercise the put option also disappeared.
However, the court ruled that former CEO Min attempted to become independent with New Genes. In other words, a ruling in favor of Hive was made, effectively acknowledging the suspicion of tampering.
Attorneys Kang and Park also said, “Under the Civil Procedure Act, what is recognized by other courts is generally followed because it is strictly binding. It is difficult for the put option court to easily reject the results of the first trial. In this case, since the original price is 26 billion won, the attorney fees, stamp fees, and delivery fees that former CEO Min would have to pay if he loses the case are also enormous. “If you lose, you will have a huge amount of debt,” he analyzed.
In the lawsuit between former CEO Min and Hive label Source Music, there was evidence that completely overturned former CEO Min’s claim that ‘I selected New Genes and changed the order of their debut at Hive.’ Public opinion was also overturned when Source Music released video interview data from parents of New Genes members, including comments such as ‘It’s amazing that you’re coming to Anyang’ and ‘If the debut group isn’t confirmed, give them the right to choose whether to remain in Source Music’ and former CEO Min’s messenger conversation history, which included the content that ‘the order of debut doesn’t matter’.
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