Belift Lab Inc., a label under HYBE to which the group ILLIT belongs, filed a lawsuit against a Team Bunnies official who claimed that "ILLIT copied NewJeans." The move is seen as an attempt to verify the claim that Team Bunnies consists of a single minor. Observers say whether the minor's identity can be pinned down will be a variable that determines the course of the suit.
According to the entertainment industry on the 18th, Belift Lab Inc. filed a damages suit worth 100 million won on the 11th with the Seoul Western District Court against a Team Bunnies official, who is a minor, and the official's parents. Belift Lab Inc. was said to have submitted the complaint listing the defendant as an unidentified person because it could not secure the Team Bunnies official's identity.
After a dispute arose between HYBE and former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, Min claimed that "ILLIT plagiarized NewJeans." Team Bunnies, which presented itself as the NewJeans fandom, posted the same content online by quoting Min Hee-jin's remarks. Belift Lab Inc. filed suit, saying the post defamed ILLIT and caused damages.
The claim has already received a legal judgment once. In a lawsuit filed in Oct. by ADOR against NewJeans seeking confirmation of the validity of the exclusive contract, the court ruled, "While some similarities can be found in certain proposals and photo shoots of NewJeans and ILLIT, it is insufficient to deem that ILLIT replicated NewJeans' concept, and there is no other evidence to recognize this."
The entertainment industry interprets the new suit by Belift Lab Inc. as a gambit to identify the true nature of Team Bunnies. Team Bunnies initially said it was "a team of Bunnies active across fields such as the legal press, finance, culture and the arts, a group of experts from all walks of life who support NewJeans."
However, a Team Bunnies official who violated the Act on the Collection and Use of Donations was found to be a minor who received a protective disposition from a family court's juvenile division. Team Bunnies later changed its position to say it was a "one-person organization," but some have raised suspicions that a group called Team Bunnies fronted a minor. They point to a series of actions last year—such as disclosing ILLIT's business plan, which constitutes trade secrets, and filing complaints against key executives at ADOR and HYBE—as difficult to view as the work of a single teenager.
The key question is whether the identity of the Team Bunnies official can be confirmed during the proceedings. While Belift Lab Inc. can seek to secure the official's identity through measures such as a court order to submit documents or viewing and copying investigative records, records of juvenile protection cases are in principle confidential, so it is uncertain whether this will lead to identification. Without identifying the person, the case cannot proceed to a ruling on the merits. It will be difficult to determine whether Team Bunnies was run by one person or operated through the cooperation of multiple people.
A legal insider said, "There have been cases where a person who repeatedly made malicious claims about idols while hiding their identity was unmasked through litigation, so Belift Lab Inc. appears to have chosen the same strategy," adding, "Team Bunnies echoed Min's claims, and the fact of being a minor is a special factor."
Attorney Kim Yeon-su of Law Firm Won's media and entertainment team said, "If you apply to view the trial records at a family court's juvenile division, it will likely be dismissed," but added, "There is room for the matter to develop into a criminal issue, and if a suit is filed in the United States and a request for information is made to the social media company where the post was uploaded, the identity could be determined."
Securing the identity does not immediately lead to a damages award. Attorney Kim Min-geon of Law Firm Huisang noted, "The issue is whether (Belift Lab Inc.) can prove the amount of damages it suffered."