Min also clarified that she had privately raised the plagiarism issue to HYBE and BELIFT LAB but they “did not admit their wrongdoings and were busy making excuses”.
In her second interview, Min claimed that she had never “met with any investor to take over management rights of ADOR”.
“How can I seize management rights with the 18 per cent stake I own? It is impossible for me to seize management rights of ADOR because HYBE owns 80 per cent of the shares. Without consent, it is impossible for ADOR to be independent from HYBE. It is difficult to understand HYBE’s claim.
“HYBE’s actions are due to me making an internal complaint, between one month ago to last week. I was suddenly notified of my dismissal when I raised concerns (of Illit’s alleged plagiarism).
“If money was the goal, we would not have raised these issues in the first place. It seems that HYBE has framed it as (ADOR trying to) acquire management rights…It’s odd to see articles about the audit without any of the audit’s results. Why was this information rushed out when I complained about something completely unrelated? HYBE seems to have no consideration for the feelings or schedules of its artistes.”
On Apr 23, HYBE revealed that it had discovered internal documents from ADOR detailing ways to get itself released from HYBE. According to South Korean outlet Korea JoongAng Daily, one of the ways involved pressuring HYBE to sell its ADOR shares to private equity firms.
A few hours later, ADOR’s vice president addressed the documents in an interview with South Korean publication Yonhap News, saying that the documents were written based on his personal thoughts and were made without the involvement of Min Hee-jin.
“The contents of the documents were not for reporting or sharing. Contrary to their grandiose name ‘internal documents’, they were not shared with any ADOR member…Private memos that were never put into practice were leaked to HYBE simply because they were stored on a company laptop.”
