SK Chairman Ordered to Pay $640 Million as Court Fixes Marital Asset Valuation Date at 2024
The Seoul High Court ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won on Friday to pay his former wife 944 billion won, about $640 million, in the divorce case South Korean media have dubbed the “divorce of the century,” according to The Associated Press. The marital asset valuation date the panel selected decided the size of that award: it valued Chey’s shares as of 2024, before an artificial intelligence boom drove them up fivefold, CNN reported.
Friday’s order came months after South Korea’s Supreme Court sent the case back to the appellate panel for further review, according to the AP. Chey and Roh So-yeong, the daughter of former South Korean president Roh Tae-woo, married in 1988 and have three children. Chey filed for divorce in 2017 after revealing he was in a relationship with another woman and had a child with her.
Chey had announced the end of the marriage two years earlier in a letter to South Korean media, and both spouses went on to file divorce proceedings, CNN reported. The litigation has run for roughly a decade.
The figure is lower than the 1.38 trillion won, roughly $940 million, that the Seoul High Court ordered last year, Fortune reported in a dispatch carrying AP copy. An earlier order requiring Chey to pay 2 billion won in alimony, about $1.3 million, was not disturbed on remand.
Why the Valuation Date Landed in 2024
Roh argued her payout should rest on a 2026 valuation of Chey’s SK Group holdings, according to CNN. Chey argued for the value as of April 2024, when the appellate court closed its hearing.
The panel took the earlier date, holding that the shares should be valued as of the conclusion of that 2024 hearing. The choice was consequential because SK Hynix, the SK Group semiconductor affiliate Chey also chairs, has climbed on demand for the memory chips that run AI data centers. The chipmaker reached a $1 trillion valuation in May, CNN reported, and raised $26.5 billion in July in what CNN described as the largest ever US listing by a foreign company.
Shares of SK Hynix traded at about 33,000 won, roughly $30, when Chey declared the marriage over in 2015, according to CNN, which reported that the company’s US-traded shares closed at $169.50 the day before Friday’s ruling.
One-Third to Roh, Two-Thirds to Chey
The court said the award reflected an asset division ratio under which Roh receives one-third and Chey retains two-thirds, and that its judgment was in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling, per CNN’s account of the decision.
Roh had demanded 42.29% of Chey’s SK Group stock holdings, along with 300 million won in alimony, about $260,000, CNN reported. The award she obtained on remand is well below the amount she sought.
The Slush-Fund Finding the Supreme Court Rejected
The reduction traces to what the Supreme Court did with a factual finding beneath the earlier award. The Seoul High Court’s previous ruling rested in part on its finding that Roh’s father provided SK with 30 billion won, about $20.4 million, in alleged slush funds during his presidency, the AP reported. The Supreme Court held that those funds could not be recognized as a legal contribution to the company’s growth.
The Supreme Court overturned the valuation in October, ruling that the money Roh’s father allegedly gave Chey’s father was illegally obtained, according to CNN. Stripped of that finding, the appellate panel’s recomputation on remand produced a smaller property award even though the underlying shares had appreciated in the interim.
Either Side Can Return to the Supreme Court
The case can be sent back to the Supreme Court if Chey or Roh files an appeal, according to the AP. Roh, the director of a Seoul art museum, did not attend Friday’s ruling.
