The court trial between ADOR and NJZ (NewJeans) continued on April 3, 2025. With the main issue contested being if ADOR had successfully fulfilled their obligations as an exclusive management agency, ADOR revealed key information about finances during the trial.
ADOR claimed that they had fulfilled their duty in terms of financial support and fair dividends, making substantial investments to develop the artist IP (intellectual property) of NJZ and faithfully fulfilled its settlement obligations.
Starting from November 2021 when ADOR was established, HYBE acquired 100% of ADOR’s shares for ₩5.00 billion KRW (about $3.41 million USD) after ADOR separated from Source Music, then made additional investments of ₩10.0 billion KRW (about $6.82 million USD) in 2021 and ₩6.00 billion KRW (about $4.09 million USD) in 2022. HYBE’s substantial investment in the establishment and running of ADOR was used to evidence their fulfillment of duty as a management company for NJZ.
The production cost for NJZ’s debut album alone amounted to approximately ₩7.00 billion KRW (about $4.77 million USD), significantly higher than the average album production cost of ₩3.00 trillion KRW (about $2.05 billion USD) at the time. In total, nearly ₩30.0 billion KRW (about $20.5 million USD) was invested in helping NJZ debut.
ADOR also stated that revenue settlements have been ongoing. Even after receiving the contract termination notice from the members, settlement payments have continued each month. This consists of their advertisement or evet payouts and other salaries. Since October 2023 alone, over ₩12.0 billion KRW (about $8.18 million USD) has been paid to the members of NJZ.
ADOR emphasized that they “made an investment of an unprecedented scale, solely for NJZ” refuting claims that “HYBE dislikes NJZ,” calling such assertions illogical.
You can read more about the trial below.
ADOR Calls NJZ’s (NewJeans) Claims To Be Contradictory During Trial