Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Hello and welcome back to the HYBE and Min Hee Jin legal mines, where today it was revealed that Min Hee Jin’s charges against HYBE were dismissed by prosecution. She had previously made accusations of defamation, illegal surveillance, and obstruction of business against six HYBE executives and four BELIFT LAB executives, including CEO Park Ji Won and CEO Kim Tae Ho, respectively.
The lawsuit was over HYBE’s press release that alleged she discussed business matters with a shaman and that she conspired to terminate NewJeans’ contract. To anybody following along with this case, it seems rather obvious that — despite winning her stock options case — she did indeed do those things, and the prosecution essentially discovered as much.
On the shaman issues, “They determined that the contents released by HYBE were not false. During the investigation process, KakaoTalk messages were reportedly confirmed showing Min Heejin discussing ADOR’s management issues with a shaman on multiple occasions. The prosecutors concluded that while the phrase ‘shaman-based management’ was somewhat exaggerated, it was difficult to view it as ‘false information’ that constitutes defamation.“
So she might not have done everything via the shaman, but saying she was talking about it with the shaman was definitely true.
Furthermore, they rejected the obstruction of business accusations via plagiarism, “Min Heejin’s claim that ILLIT had copied NewJeans also failed to persuade the prosecutors, citing the previous court ruling that stated, ‘There were some similarities, but it is difficult to consider it as a copy.’ As a result, BELIFT LAB’s statement that argued, ‘ILLIT did not copy NewJeans,’ was recognized as an expression of opinion rather than defamation.“
Yeah, an uphill battle due to precedent in the case, and also because it was pretty clear that part of the press conference was opinion and not like some kind of legally binding analysis. Huge reach.
The relatively new thing (or maybe I missed it on my hiatus) is regarding the legality of how HYBE accessed all her messages and e-mails, but the prosecutors also rejected that HYBE went overboard there, “The prosecutors also rejected Min Heejin’s allegation that HYBE ilegally accessed her emails and her close associate’s messenger accounts, which she had claimed as a violation of Information and Communications Network Laws. The prosecutors determined that HYBE’s action fell within its lawful audit authority, citing she had signed the security agreements and personal information consent forms when she joined ADOR. In particular, the prosecutors reportedly confirmed that former VP Lee Sangwoo voluntarily provided his password, further weakening the ‘illegal surveillance’ claim.“
That also seems reasonable to me. I think it was universally agreed that she was insane for doing all this shit on her work stuff.
So yeah, this result shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, as back in July of last year they had already decided not to refer the case and this was just a rejection of Min Hee Jin’s objection. The criminal side of things for HYBE from Min Hee Jin seems settled with this ruling.
I mean, I really doubt anybody’s getting criminally charged here, as the criminal breach of duty charges by HYBE against Min Hee Jin were also rejected in July of last year (though that’s still in appeal, I think). The more relevant thing is whether HYBE can use this to get an overturn on appeal of the put-options ruling, and as always, the real fight and winner/loser will be determined by who gets the money. It was always about that on some level, so it’s fitting.
