Police in South Korea say they will hand the case against HYBE Chairman Bang Si-hyuk to prosecutors this week.
The move would close a police investigation into the K-pop company’s 2020 stock market listing that has been running since December 2024.
That’s according to multiple Korean news outlets, including Yonhap, whose report – carried by The Korea Times – said Hong Seok-ki, head of the National Office of Investigation at the Korean National Police Agency, addressed the case at a press briefing on Monday (August 31).
“We plan to forward the case to the prosecution within the week,” Hong said, according to Yonhap.
Asked whether police would seek Bang’s detention, Hong said a “decision on custody will come at that time,” according to Seoul Economic Daily.
Bang is accused of telling existing investors in 2019 that HYBE – then known as Big Hit Entertainment – had no plans to go public.
At the same time, HYBE was moving through IPO procedures, including an application for a designated auditor, according to Sisa Journal.
Those investors sold their stakes to a special purpose vehicle set up by a private equity fund, and the holding was sold down over the five trading days from the company’s October 2020 listing and again the following May and June, Sisa Journal reported.
Sisa Journal reported that investigators found Bang agreed to take about 30% of the gains from that sale under an earn-out contract, and that the contract was not entered in HYBE’s securities registration statement.
Investigators also concluded that Bang helped set up and run the fund, which was capitalized by HYBE executives, according to Seoul Economic Daily; Sisa Journal reported that both current and former executives were involved.
Seoul Economic Daily put Bang’s alleged improper gain at around KRW 190 billion (approximately USD $137 million), while Yonhap reported it as nearly KRW 200 billion ($145m).
Investigators calculated the improper gain across Bang and alleged accomplices at KRW 262.6 billion ($189m), Sisa Journal reported. That is a separate calculation covering the whole group, net of investor distributions and financing repayments.
The alleged offense is fraudulent unfair trading under South Korea’s Capital Markets Act.
Bang and HYBE have denied the allegations throughout.
HYBE has said its underwriters and outside legal advisers all took the view that the earn-out deal was a contract between particular shareholders, caused no financial loss to ordinary shareholders, and did not have to be disclosed in the securities filing, Sisa Journal reported.
Whether ordinary investors suffered any loss from Bang’s conduct was also among the contested points, the outlet reported.
Police searched the Korea Exchange and raided HYBE’s Seoul headquarters across June and July 2025, escalating the case from a preliminary inquiry to a full investigation.
Bang was placed under a travel ban in August 2025 before being summoned for questioning five times between September and November 2025.
On November 19, 2025, a court granted a pre-indictment preservation order freezing KRW 156.8 billion ($113m) of Bang’s HYBE shares, Sisa Journal reported.
Police applied for an arrest warrant on April 21 this year, and the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office returned it three days later, citing insufficient grounds for detention.
Officers refiled on April 30, and prosecutors rejected that request too, on May 6, saying the supplementary investigation they had asked for had not been carried out.
Neither application reached a court, and Korean media report that Bang is now expected to be referred without a third attempt and without detention.
When police first sought his arrest, Bang’s legal team told the Associated Press it was regrettable that officers were doing so “despite our full and consistent cooperation with the investigation over an extended period,” adding that they “will continue to cooperate with all legal procedures and make every effort to clearly explain our position.”
Arriving at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s financial crimes unit for his first round of questioning on September 15, 2025, Bang told reporters: “I’m sorry for causing concern over my own affairs. I will take part in today’s questioning in good faith,” according to Seoul Shinmun.
Asked directly whether he had told investors there was no listing plan, Bang said only that he would address it in the questioning.
The timing of the referral carries weight because South Korea is restructuring its prosecution system.
On October 2, the Prosecution Service is abolished and replaced by the Public Prosecution Office, which decides charges, and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, which takes over the major-crime investigations prosecutors previously ran themselves.
From that date, prosecutors lose the power to question suspects directly in referred cases, leaving about a month for the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office to review the file under the current rules.
The amended law allows up to 90 days of investigation under the old rules where a limitation period is close or the nature of a case makes it unavoidable, though the criteria have not been set, according to TenAsia.
Fraudulent unfair trading sits inside the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency’s economic-crime remit, but subordinate legislation has not settled whether the Public Prosecution Office could route further investigation to that agency rather than back to the police, TenAsia reported.
If the case is not resolved during September, the file carries over to the Public Prosecution Office for the charging decision, TenAsia reported.
At the briefing, Hong rejected the suggestion that police had held the case back until the new system takes effect, according to Seoul Economic Daily.
South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) opened an investigation on June 4 into HYBE and its subsidiary ADOR over the companies’ treatment of NewJeans member Danielle, according to the attorney who filed the complaint.
The opening of a KFTC review is a preliminary step and carries no finding that HYBE or ADOR broke the law.
On February 12, the Seoul Central District Court threw out HYBE’s bid to terminate its shareholder agreement with former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, ordering the company to pay her KRW 25.5 billion ($17.6m), plus a combined KRW 3.1 billion ($2.1m) to two other former ADOR executives who had also exercised put options.
HYBE appealed on February 19 and later lodged a KRW 29.25 billion ($20m) deposit with the court to stay enforcement, leaving that payment on hold while the appeal runs.
The legal pressure has coincided with growth in HYBE’s business.
The company posted revenue of KRW 1.45 trillion (approximately $967 million) in Q2 2026, up 105.5% YoY, in what it said was a record quarterly result.
Concert revenue rose 243.3% YoY to KRW 647.7 billion ($432m), driven by the BTS WORLD TOUR ‘ARIRANG,’ which launched in April.
Prosecutors will decide whether to indict Bang once they have reviewed the police file.
The KRW 190 billion, KRW 262.6 billion, and KRW 156.8 billion figures are converted at approximately 1,390 KRW/USD; other dollar figures are as published by the outlets cited or previously by MBW. The February 2026 court figures use The Korea Herald’s rate at the time, and the Q2 2026 figures use the average Q2 2026 rate of approximately 1,500 KRW/USD.Music Business Worldwide
