HYBE Called Out For Employee Contract That “Violates Human Rights”

It was recently confirmed that employees of HYBE have to sign an agreement on confidentiality before they leave the company. While this is common practice, a clause of the contract sparked criticism from the public. Employees have to sign a “no competition” clause, preventing them from working in a competition company for a year. This prevents employees who resign from HYBE from working in the same industry. They also cannot establish and operate a competition company.

This was instilled by the current CEO of ADOR, Ju Young Kim, who was previously heading the HR Department in HYBE. Critics have pointed out that because non-executive level employees do not see any benefits from working in competition companies, this contractual clause virtually has no legal implications. However, it violates individual freedom of choice as many would not know about the fact that it does not affect them legally.

Critics call out HYBE for this contract, as employees will feel pressured not to take up a job in the same industry, limiting their career choices. It will also affect resignation decisions. An industry official stated that “HYBE itself is a company that has grown by stealing talent from other entertainment agencies” but prevents its employees from going to other companies, calling out hypocrisy. A labor attorney stated that “as it is a de facto piece of paper with no legal effect, it simply seems to be a way of suppressing workers, unreasonably violating the people’s basic rights to choose a job. In-house legal experts would have told the company that it was ineffective, but implementing it is a way of pressurizing employees not to leave the company.”

In addition, the contract contains a clause where resigned employees cannot file any lawsuits against HYBE for issues that occurred during their tenure. This means that should they have been hurt or damaged physically or emotionally during their employment, they cannot sue the company.