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Record deals are typically restrictive, especially when it comes to pop artists. But it’s rare for the details of those contracts to become public knowledge. Today, New York Times gave K-pop fans an unprecedented look into the wide-ranging terms of NewJeans’s label deal with HYBE subsidiary ADOR, which not only dictates the girl group’s musical output and the use of their voices and likenesses, but the minutiae of their personal lives.
The contracts, which NewJeans’s parents signed when they were teenagers, are “unusually aggressive,” per an entertainment lawyer based in Seoul. Terms include restrictions on their personal romantic relationships and how the group is allowed to speak about their label in public. The contracts also did away with template language protecting the artists’ “rights to physical and mental health,” making it more difficult for the group to argue against their working conditions.
Crucially, the contracts also include steep exit fees should the artists attempt to leave the company, or even if the company decides to drop an artist. Experts told the Times that the financial terms of the contract were not particularly unusual for the K-pop industry, though entertainment lawyer Dina LaPolt (Britney Spears, Cardi B) said the deal would seem “horrific” to U.S. artists.
Representatives for HYBE defended those exit penalties to the Times on the basis of the company’s high financial investment in the group’s training and careers. The terms of the contract also allow for the company to continue using the group’s voices and likenesses long after the deal itself winds down in 2029, though members will have to be paid. Sources close to NewJeans also say ADOR suggested several members of the girl group undergo cosmetic surgery, increasing their “trainee debt.”
NewJeans shocked the K-pop industry in 2024 when the girl group called an emergency press conference announcing their intent to leave ADOR. That led to a legal brawl with their label and a South Korean court ultimately concluding that the idols do not qualify as workers under the country’s Labour Standards Act.
Revisit The FADER’s timeline of NewJeans dispute with HYBE and ADOR.
