NewJeans took their new brand NJZ off social media on Friday, changing the name of their Instagram account from “njz_official” to “mhdhh_friends”, MHDHH being the initials of the group’s members. The change is presumably to comply with the recent injunction banning the K-pop group from pursuing projects without the involvement of HYBE’s Ador agency, which they quit last year.
Ador’s lawsuit that seeks to enforce its contract with NewJeans was discussed during a court session in Seoul last week, with the judge stating that this is a “unique” dispute that needs “careful consideration”.
During that session the group’s lawyers were adamant that NewJeans are currently in no mood to negotiate a settlement with Ador. The judge has now scheduled the next hearing for 5 Jun, which means fans aren’t likely to be getting any new music or shows, under either the NewJeans or NJZ brand, any time soon.
According to the Korea Herald, last week’s court session discussed in some detail how the big falling out between Ador and NewJeans was very much connected to HYBE’s big falling out with Ador founder Min Hee-jin. After Min was pushed out as CEO of Ador in August 2024, the group then quit the agency in November.
This, said lawyers for NewJeans, was because - after Min was “ousted” and replaced by “someone under direct control of HYBE” - the “nature” of the agency was “fundamentally changed”. As a result, trust between the group and the agency “irreparably collapsed”, making it impossible for them to continue working together.
For its part, Ador was keen to stress that it had been happy for Min to continue working with NewJeans in a producer and creative director capacity, but that she refused to continue in that role after the agency’s board removed her from the CEO job.
“The defendants argue that they cannot carry on with their careers without Min”, Ador’s lawyer then told the court, “but it makes no sense to say NewJeans cannot exist without her”. After all, the attorney added, “Ador is a subsidiary of HYBE, the number one K-pop agency in the industry”, which is more than capable of finding new producers for the group to work with.
After declaring they had cancelled their contract with Ador late last year, NewJeans began pursuing new projects as NJZ, including a recent show at ComplexCon Hong Kong.
It was those projects that led to Ador securing an injunction to put a halt to any new NewJeans activity while it tries to enforce its contract with the group through the courts, on the basis that it says the group’s members cannot unilaterally cancel that contract.
Shortly after the injunction was issued, the group announced they were going on hiatus, although the ComplexCon show still went ahead. Although that was staged without Ador’s involvement, Min wasn’t involved either, a fact Ador’s lawyers used in court last week as further evidence that Min’s involvement isn’t vital for the group to continue performing and making new music.
That’s not relevant, though, according to the group’s lawyers. What matters, they argued, is that, since Min’s departure, “Ador is no longer the same company it once was”.
As the conflict between HYBE and Min escalated communication between the agency and the group broke down, the band’s legal team said, with the result that they are now asking the court “to determine whether it is right for the defendants to continue with the current Ador, which is no longer the agency they once trusted”.
The dispute is unique for the K-pop world, the judge overseeing the case, Jeong Hoe-il, noted during last week’s hearing, because rather than an agency failing to pay an artist, which is usually the reason why a K-pop act might want to terminate their contract with an agency, NewJeans vs Ador centres on this “loss of trust”. Therefore, the judge added, this case will require “careful consideration”.