Korean court orders tech titan to pay ex-wife $640 million in divorce settlement

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - SEOUL — A South Korean court ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won on Friday to pay 944 billion won ($640 million) ‌in a divorce case that has cast a spotlight on the billionaire's stake in the nation's second-largest conglomerate.

It comes more than a decade after Chey's marriage to Roh Soh-yeong, the daughter of a former president, fell apart following the revelation he had fathered a child with another woman.

The cash award to Chey's former spouse is a record for South Korea, even though substantially lower than a settlement of 1.38 trillion won ordered by the appeals court in 2024.

Fund managers and analysts said it meant Chey may ​still need to sell shares in units of SK Group or use them as collateral to raise funds for payment, but probably would not ​affect management control of the conglomerate.

"This likely won't affect management control of SK Group," said Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis ⁠firm Leaders Index.

SK Group's international profile has soared on the back of the artificial intelligence boom.

SK Group runs SK Hynix, the semiconductor giant that supplies chips to Nvidia and recently made a record-setting debut on the US stock market.

Chey's lawyers said "Chairman Chey Tae-won is deeply sorry in that [the divorce] proceedings so far have caused concern to many people. We will share specific response to the verdict after we closely review the ruling."

SK Group is one of South Korea's family-owned conglomerates that dominate the country's economy.

The verdict comes after deliberation over the division of assets between Roh and Chey, who had been married for 35 years.

The court said Chey's SK Inc shares and other holdings remained subject to division, as they were acquired during the ​marriage and both parties contributed to their ​creation, maintenance and increase in value.

Roh's ⁠contributions included child-rearing, household responsibilities and external activities related to SK Group, it added.

On ​Friday, the Seoul High Court said Chey's shareholdings should be valued as of April 16, 2024, when the original appeals ​court concluded fact-finding in ⁠the divorce case, citing Supreme Court precedent.

While Chey's shareholdings rose sharply after the original appeal hearing, it said the increase did not warrant adopting a later valuation date and was instead reflected in determining the parties' respective shares of the marital estate.

On Friday, the court set the property division ratio at a third for Roh and two-thirds for ⁠Chey, down ​from the share of 35% the appeals court awarded Roh in 2024.

The court also said it did not take into account alleged financial support from Roh's father in calculating the division ratio, in line with the Supreme Court ruling.

During the earlier trial in 2024, Roh's legal team had successfully argued that Chey had received significant help from his ex-wife's father, Roh Tae-woo, who had served as the country's president between 1988 to 1993.

The court had determined that the strongman had given Chey 30bn Korean won from his slush fund in 1991, and told Chey to pay 1.38tn to his ex-wife.

But the Supreme Court overturned the verdict last year, ruling that the slush funds were illegally obtained and could not be considered as part of the couple's assets.

The case that local media has called the "divorce of the century" has gripped South Korea.

SK Group began as a textile company in 1953 but quickly grew across a wide swath of industries to become one of South Korea's biggest conglomerates.

Today, it is the second largest chaebol after the Samsung group. South Korean people buy phone plans from SK Telecom and fill their vehicles at SK petrol stations.

The group gained global prominence after its subsidiary SK Hynix found itself at the centre of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. In May, the chipmaker surpassed $1tn (£750bn) on the South Korean stock market.

As SK Hynix's value soared, the SK Group and its chairman Chey's status also rose.

Last month, President Lee Jae Myung commended Chey during the unveiling of a landmark AI investment plan, calling him and Samsung chairman JY Lee "Heroes of Korean People."

The company also raised $26.5bn in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.