[Exclusive] "Hive followed Adore female employee home late at night and threatened to confess to Min Hee-jin's embezzlement"

Amid the dispute between the management of Hive and its subsidiary Adore, which is the agency of Group New Jeans, over allegations of attempted management rights seizure, Adore has revealed that "Hive has committed an illegal audit."

Adore stated that "Hive conducted an audit that went beyond the scope of work regulations, including following female members to their homes late at night and demanding their laptops and even their personal cell phones, which were not even company-owned."

Adore's legal representative, Sejong Law Firm, stated that the Hive audit team began auditing Adore's style directing Dimjang at 7 PM on the 9th, followed the team leader to his house, demanded that he submit his laptop and cell phone, and applied psychological pressure by making threatening remarks such as, "If you don't cooperate, we'll have to take you to the police station," and "The circumstances of embezzlement are clear, so we'll file a lawsuit."

According to Adore, the Hive audit team raised issues about the contractual relationship between Adore and the style directing team leader. Initially, New Jeans had internal members conduct advertisement photoshoots, but due to New Jeans’ popularity, they were unable to carry out all advertisement photoshoots, so the styling for advertisement photoshoots was done through outsourced personnel, and this information was shared with the Hive department in charge in February.

Adore stated that Hive was taking issue with the fact that Adore’s internal staff received incentives from advertisers instead of receiving payments from freelancers. In doing so, Adore stated that “since Adore did not suffer any financial damage, there can be no embezzlement, contrary to Hive’s claims.”

Adore stated, "Not only did Hive conduct an unreasonable audit, but they also followed a female employee to her home late at night, past 10 p.m., and forced her to sign a consent form for using her laptop, actions that go beyond common sense and that a normal company would not engage in." He added, "Even though there were no problems with the procedure or content, the fact that they claim that 'the circumstances of embezzlement and breach of trust are clear' proves that Hive's management has no understanding of the business. The method of this audit is also illegal, amounting to obstruction of business, coercion, and invasion of privacy."

He continued, "We are concerned that this forced audit could also be used for Hive's media play, so we decided to transparently inform you of this fact first," and "The member in question is currently complaining of mental distress due to anxiety. We plan to withdraw our consent to the use of personal information that was created under a coercive situation that lasted over 5 hours, and we are also considering filing a lawsuit for obstruction of business and coercion."

In doing so, he said, "Hive's management is demonstrating a lack of understanding of the business by concluding that a transaction that was reasonably conducted in terms of procedure and substance was embezzlement without considering the nature of the job. I think it will be easy to determine which side is causing inefficiency and obstructing business under the pretext of an audit."