SK chairman ordered to pay $644 mil. in property division retrial
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, left, and his ex-wife Roh Soh-yeong arrive at the Seoul High Court for hearing, June 28. Yonhap
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won was ordered Friday to pay 944 billion won ($644 million) to his former wife, Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong, in a retrial of their high-profile property division lawsuit.
The Seoul High Court handed down the ruling during a hearing, concluding the latest round of the long-running dispute over the division of the couple's marital assets.
The court treated Chey's stake in SK Inc., the group's holding company, as property subject to division. The court said a third of Chey’s share property is subject to Roh and two thirds to him. The court added Chey should pay in cash for any insufficient amount of share due for Roh.
The court said it has calculated the property division using an earlier appellate court's closing date of April 16, 2024.
“Although SK’s share price rose significantly between the close of arguments in the appellate trial and that of the remanded trial, it cannot be said that Chey’s managerial contributions had no impact," the court said.
The court, however, added that “to ensure an equitable division of marital property, the substantial increase in the share price was taken into account when determining the asset division ratio.”
The ruling came after the Supreme Court last October overturned and remanded the appellate decision. The top court found that even if funds linked to Roh's father, former President Roh Tae-woo, had flowed into SK Group, they should not be recognized as a contribution to the couple's marital assets.
The high court said that, in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling, even if former President Roh had provided 30 billion won in slush funds to the SK side, this would not be regarded as a contribution by Roh.
The court said shares that Chey had gifted to relatives as part of maintaining management control and conducting business activities prior to the breakdown of the marriage were excluded from the assets subject to division.
Lee Jae-geun, an attorney representing SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, speaks after the Seoul High Court delivered its ruling in the remanded property division case in Seocho District, Friday. Yonhap
“Going through the marriage that lasted nearly 20 years, the divorce was finalized by the Supreme Court’s ruling last year, and today there has been a decision in the remanded trial regarding the division of property. Chairman Chey sincerely regrets having caused concern to many people throughout this process," Chey’s legal representative said following the verdict.
The representative said Chey would announce his detailed position on the ruling after thoroughly reviewing the court's written judgment.
Chey and Roh married in 1988 and have three children, but their marriage eventually broke down. In 2015, Chey publicly disclosed that the couple had been living apart for more than a decade due to an irreconcilable rift and that he had fathered a child out of wedlock.
Friday's ruling was delivered nine years after the legal dispute between the two sides began, when Chey filed for divorce mediation in 2017. But after the effort failed, he filed a formal lawsuit the following year. In 2019, Roh filed a counterclaim, saying she would accept the divorce.
In 2022, the first-instance court ordered Chey to pay Roh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in property division. In 2024, the appellate court significantly increased the amounts to 2 billion won in alimony and 1.38 trillion won in property division.
The appellate court reasoned that former President Roh’s 30 billion won in slush funds and Roh’s contributions had played a role in the growth of SK Group. It therefore ruled that Chey's shares in SK Inc. constituted marital property subject to division.
However, in October last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the slush funds were illegally obtained and, even if they had been funneled into SK, they could not be regarded as Roh's contribution for the purpose of property division.
The court therefore remanded the case for further proceedings on the property division issue. It upheld the appellate court's award of 2 billion won ($1.4 million) in alimony, leaving only the division of assets to be reconsidered.