East Asia

South Korean court orders SK chairman Chey to pay US$644 million to ex-wife in divorce ruling

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SEOUL: A South Korean court ordered an AI chip-manufacturing tycoon on Friday (Jul 24) to make a trimmed-down US$644 million divorce payment to his former wife.

Chey Tae-won, 65, is the chairman of the SK Group, which owns world-leading memory chipmaker SK hynix – a pillar of South Korea’s tech-led economy.

Seoul High Court in 2024 had told him to pay 1.38 trillion won (US$940 million) to his ex-wife Roh Soh-yeong, daughter of a former South Korean president.

The sum – equal to more than US$1 billion at the exchange rate at the time of the ruling – led local media to dub it the “divorce of the century”.

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Chey appealed to the Supreme Court, which told the high court to reconsider its 2024 decision and led to the tycoon’s reduced divorce bill of 944 billion won (US$644 million).

The settlement is not yet final, however, as either side may refer it back to the Supreme Court.

The acrimonious case centres on the definition and valuation of the couple’s shared assets, including Chey’s lucrative stake in the SK Group.

Seoul High Court ruled Friday that Roh was entitled to a cash payout worth one-third of the couple’s marital assets.

“The defendant’s shareholdings increased substantially during the marriage through his management activities,” the court said.

“The plaintiff contributed to that increase through homemaking, childcare and public-facing activities related to SK Group.”

Chey and Roh married in 1988, but the couple are believed to have lived apart for more than 15 years. In 2015, he admitted to fathering a child with his lover.

With SK hynix selling vital memory chips to AI computing company Nvidia, Chey’s stake is now worth roughly US$5.5 billion, according to regulatory filings and public data.

Roh, 65, has three children with Chey and has built a career in the cultural space, running a digital art museum.

BRIBES

The pair were wed in Seoul’s presidential Blue House when her father, Roh Tae-woo, led the country from 1988 to 1993.

They have battled over the split in the courts since 2022, after Chey filed for divorce in 2017 and mediation broke down.

The court’s original 2024 ruling ordering the payout to Roh cited a 30 billion won slush fund her ex-president father used to propel SK Group’s growth.

The court said at the time that could be counted as her contribution towards the couple’s shared assets.

But in October last year the Supreme Court quashed that argument, saying that any such cash likely stemmed from illegal bribes and therefore should not be counted.

Another question was whether the dramatic increase in SK Group’s value since the couple’s separation, on the cusp of the AI boom, should be reflected in the asset division.

“The court took into account the sharp rise in the value of the defendant’s shareholdings when determining the property division ratio,” Friday’s court statement said.

SK Group shares have more than tripled in value since December 2015, when Chey publicly disclosed his extramarital affair.

The Supreme Court had already separately ordered Chey to make an alimony payment to Roh of 2 billion won.

Source: AFP/fh

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