Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Hyundai Card CEO loses to siblings in inheritance lawsuit
By Anna J. Park
Hyundai Card Vice Chairman and CEO Chung Tae-young / Courtesy of Hyundai Card
By Anna J. Park
The first round of a family feud involving Hyundai Card's Vice Chairman and CEO Chung Tae-young over his mother's will has ended with Chung losing the lawsuit, as the Seoul Central District Court ruled Wednesday in favor of the plaintiffs ― the two younger siblings of Chung.
Chung and his two siblings have been mired in a family dispute over the validity of their mother's will, written three days before her death in March 2018 when she was hospitalized.
The mother's will was handwritten, stating that her land and savings worth about 10 billion won ($8.5 million) would be inherited by her daughter and her second son. There was no mention of her firstborn son or her husband in the will. The will also had the date and her social security number written on it as well as her name stamped with her seal.
After her death, Chung and his father challenged the will's validity, saying it didn't match her handwriting, and that it couldn't have been written by her when she was in a state of hampered cognitive ability. The two siblings said their late mother always had a heavy heart about their position in the family.
Wednesday's court ruling stated that “according to the handwriting analysis, it is recognized that the will's writing is identical with the deceased's handwriting.” The ruling also stated that it is recognized that she demonstrated lucid cognitive ability when she wrote the will.
The trial is not the only point of dispute within the family. CEO Chung and his younger sister have long been entangled in another fight over control of Seoul PMC ― originally an education company of their father, with CEO Chung being the largest shareholder of the firm with over 70 percent of shares. While Chung's sister has a 17 percent stake, Seoul PMC is now an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, and CEO Chung is son-in-law of its Chairman and CEO Chung Mong-koo. The two Chung families are not related by blood.
CEO Chung's younger sister wrote in an online petition board at the website of Cheong Wa Dae last summer that he resorted to expedients to increase his share stakes and run the company at his whim while keeping its accounting books from her. She lost the suit over the right to open the firm's accounting books last year. The younger brother is also mired in another legal dispute with the firm and CEO Chung.