NewJeans Face 1 Billion Won Bill for Unauthorized Moves by ADOR

lewishooper1
Jun 2
2 min read

Costly ruling: NewJeans (NJZ) faces a 1 billion won (USD 724,000) penalty for unauthorized activity! What happened, how did fans react, and what does the future of NewJeans look like?

Image: New Jeans ADOR 2025 Photo: Koreaboo

A court in Seoul has ruled that each NewJeans member must pay ADOR 1 billion won which works out around $725,000 USD to each unauthorized entertainment activity which is conducted without prior approval to ADOR, while their legal battle is on going.

This has come into effect since the legal battle between NewJeans and ADOR has taken a dramatic turn, and ADORs plea for indirect control has been answered. If this because of their financial influence? Some think that this sets the stage for a really high stakes showdown in the court room, especially as NewJeans faces crippling financial penalties for every step taken out of line. What do you think?

To avoid disaster, the latest ruling is not aimed as a weapon against the members as it means that NewJeans escapes a potentially ruinous multi-billion won debt for the activities they've pursued since their defiant contract termination announcement. But we will have to wait for more until the second court ruling on June 5th.

So, where has this come from?

Last November, NewJeans held an emergency press conference and stated that they were stepping down and terminating their exclusive contracts with ADOR, and therefore began taking on their activities, and came up with the new name NJZ.

As a result, ADOR filed an emergency injunction with the court to preserve the agency's contracts and status, which prohibited the girls from advertising and using NewJeans songs, names, among other things. The court ruled that NewJeans members should not engage in entertainment activities on their own or through third parties without prior approval or consent from ADOR.

How Did Fans React?

Our thoughts

The Dojeon Media team strongly agrees that the girls should not use the NewJeans name while going through court proceedings, as the name is exclusive to the record label ADOR. To be honest, since the girls acted out of line holding YouTube press conferences with little to no warning, it shows that NewJeans might be in over their heads with ADOR with its highly informed legal team.

Not to mention they wanted to reinstate the former head of ADOR after she was ousted, causing every attempt to gain attention from the public with brining up their up and down relationship with CEO of ADOR Min Hee Jin.

That said, the amount that have the court ruled seems to be a tremendous amount, although it could reflect what the members are earning with their music and band name, which is pretty impressive.

It seems like the brand "NewJeans" has a bleak future as every action the group decides to make is met with dire consequences.