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Min Hee-jin (Xports News Seocho, Reporter Myung Hee-sook) Former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin mentioned her close relationship with BANA, which was rumored to be where NewJeans might contract. On the afternoon of the 18th, the 31st Civil Settlement Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Nam In-soo) held the 6th hearing for the lawsuit confirming the termination of the shareholder agreement between HYBE and former CEO Min Hee-jin, and the 4th hearing for the lawsuit claiming the stock purchase price filed by MHJ and 2 others. MHJ personally attended the hearing and gave testimony. Previously, a party examination lasted about 5 hours and 30 minutes. That day, HYBE’s lawyer asked, “Did you intend to use BANA to lift the non-compete restrictions?” MHJ replied, “Absolutely not.” Regarding the mention of BANA and former Kakao CEO Kim Sung-gu, MHJ stressed, “That KakaoTalk was in April ’21, and it had nothing to do with BANA. It was also before the shareholder agreement and ADOR’s establishment. It was when we hadn't even signed a deal with BANA. I don't have shares in BANA either. There is no relation whatsoever.” Previously, reports claimed NewJeans was signing an exclusive contract with BANA during the contract dispute with ADOR. At the time, the members' side denied the reports as "groundless."

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MHJ said, “At the time, BANA had a contractual relationship with ADOR. There’s no evidence of contact, but they took something they found in KakaoTalk to slander me and wrote an article. That ‘exclusive’ tag suggests they were given the source, right? I wondered where it came from, and today I found out how.” She continued, “I wanted to foster a music label called BANA, so I introduced it to Bang Si-hyuk. But he dropped it. Kim Sung-soo was trying to recruit me, so I contacted him. I even told Kim Sung-soo’s company to invest in it.” She strongly refuted, “The situation changed rapidly, and if I attach post-hoc reasoning to the results, I can use an analogy: Bang Si-hyuk asked me to stomp on a certain girl group. If that girl group then has a problem, people would say Bang Si-hyuk ordered it. It leads to an unreasonable leap in logic.” Notably, MHJ revealed that the CEO of BANA, Mr. Kim, was her *ex-boyfriend*. Regarding giving him part of her put option, she said, “I wrote that agreement with Mr. Kim because I wanted to. I agreed to give him a portion when I receive the put option.” She explained, “He is not my current boyfriend, and Kim Ki-won is a highly skilled person. He produced all of NewJeans’ songs. It was impossible to formally give someone like that stock options. I had to compensate him, and since I couldn’t use company funds, I gave it from my portion, figuring I could cut it out of my share.” (Photo = Xports News DB)