Min Hee-jin Reignites ILLIT Plagiarism Debate in Court Battle with HYBE

By Jieun, Baek

Sep 12, 2025

Min Hee-jin Reignites ILLIT Plagiarism Debate in Court Battle with HYBE



Min Hee-jin, former CEO of ADOR, once again opened his mouth on suspicion of plagiarism in ILLIT.

On the 11th, a second hearing was held at the Seoul Central District Court's Civil Agreement Department 31 (Chief Judge Nam In-soo) to confirm the termination of the contract between shareholders filed by Hive against former CEO Min and a stock trading lawsuit filed by former CEO Min against Hive. On this day, former representative Min attended the court in person and drew attention. This is the first time he has appeared in court since his legal battle with Hive began last year.

Min Hee-jin Reignites ILLIT Plagiarism Debate in Court Battle with HYBE
Photo provided=Belifrap
On the same day, HYBE claimed that the right to claim put options was extinguished because the shareholder's contract with former CEO Min was terminated in July last year, and that former CEO Min urged the exclusive contract dispute between NewJeans and Ador to meet investors and tried to tie NewJeans, and even raised suspicions of plagiarism and hoarding by ILLIT, a girl group affiliated with Hive's label, Belief Lab.




CLO Jeong Jin-soo "Project 1945, VP business notes, investigation documents, and Hive 7 sin documents were found, which were being prepared by former Vice President Lee Sang-woo at the time of the audit." Min Hee-jin's business e-mail found an attached file containing what he shared with a shaman"Leserafim 2/19 written on the sound source hoarding item in the Project 1945 document is Le sserafim's comeback date, and "ILLIT 3/25" is ILLIT's debut date".

Then "ILLIT seems to have tried to attack with a frame like that even before his debut. Anyone who debuts can always get a response of 'similar to someone'. It is not an authoritative assessment. There has been no legal ruling on plagiarism."

Min Hee-jin Reignites ILLIT Plagiarism Debate in Court Battle with HYBE
However, Min claimed that when ILLIT pointed out problems such as plagiarizing NewJeans and pushing him to increase the record of album sales, he conducted a retaliatory audit at Hive and dismissed him unfairly. He also said that the suspicion that ILLIT plagiarized NewJeans was started by the public, not himself.




Former CEO Min said, "The ILLIT copy was talked about in all communities before my personal claim. There was also an article asking if this was allowed because they were from the same agency. ILLIT's suspicion of plagiarism has been raised since the teaser photo was released on March 2nd.

Then "push" is also referred to as "push". It is to push the record to distribution companies for the first time (sales in a week after the release of the album). Is it one sheet or 80,000 sheets. Numbers are not what matters. If you push even one sheet away, it's a push away. The ILLIT album sold 80,000 copies on the last day of its launch. NewJeans' record?"Can't you suspect that you pushed it out for the sake of it?" he raised his voice.

The court decided to conduct additional questioning of former representative Min on November 27 and conclude the argument on December 18. Sentencing is expected to come out by the end of January next year.








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