Chey Tae-won divorce settlement cut to $640 million in Seoul ruling
A Seoul court ordered SK Group chair Chey Tae-won to pay Roh So-yeong $640 million after South Korea’s Supreme Court review.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
A Seoul court ordered billionaire SK Group chair Chey Tae-won to pay his former wife Roh So-yeong 944 billion won, or about $640 million, in the Chey Tae-won divorce settlement. The decision keeps one of South Korea’s most watched family and business disputes alive, with another Supreme Court appeal still possible.
The Seoul High Court issued the order Friday after South Korea’s Supreme Court sent the case back for additional review. Roh, who runs an art museum in Seoul, is the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo.
South Korean media have described the fight as the country’s “divorce of the century.” Neither Chey nor Roh attended the high court session, according to the court proceedings.
How much did Chey Tae-won have to pay Roh So-yeong?
The Seoul High Court set the property division at 944 billion won, equal to roughly $640 million. That is less than the 1.38 trillion won, or about $940 million, that the same court ordered last year before the Supreme Court intervened.
Chey also had earlier been ordered to pay 2 billion won, about $1.3 million, in alimony. The latest ruling concerns the revised financial settlement after the Supreme Court’s review.
The size of the award has drawn attention because Chey leads SK Group, whose semiconductor affiliate SK Hynix has benefited from the global boom in artificial intelligence. Shares of SK Hynix have climbed in recent months as demand tied to AI has lifted semiconductor companies.
Why did the Supreme Court send the case back?
The previous high court decision partly relied on a finding that Roh’s father had provided SK with 30 billion won, or about $20.4 million, in alleged slush funds during his presidency. The Supreme Court later ruled that those funds could not be treated as a lawful contribution to the company’s growth.
That finding required the appellate court to review the financial award again. The new order reduced the amount owed to Roh but still left Chey facing one of the largest divorce-related payments reported in South Korea.
Chey and Roh married in 1988 and have three children. Chey sought a divorce in 2017 after disclosing that he was in a relationship with another woman and had a child with her.
The case may return to the Supreme Court if either Chey or Roh files an appeal. Friday’s ruling therefore may not be the final step in the dispute.
Chey is also among South Korean business leaders traveling to the United States with President Lee Jae Myung. Lee is expected to meet technology executives in San Francisco, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, as South Korea seeks investment in its AI and semiconductor efforts.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.