The nine-year legal battle over the divorce between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Noh So-young has come to an end. The remand trial court has ordered Chairman Chey to pay 944 billion won to Director Noh as a property division following their divorce.
Reporter Jung Hye-jin has the details.
The Seoul High Court Family Division 1 ruled today (the 24th) that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won must pay 944 billion won to Art Center Nabi Director Noh So-young as a property division.
This comes nine months after the Supreme Court quashed the second-instance ruling in October of last year, and nine years after the divorce proceedings began in 2017.
First, the court excluded the 30 billion won slush fund of former President Roh Tae-woo that flowed into SK Group, following the Supreme Court's remand rationale that it was illegal money and could not be considered as Director Noh's contribution to the formation of assets.
However, the court regarded Chairman Chey's SK shares not as separate property acquired through inheritance, but as jointly formed property by the couple, thus including them in the targets for division.
The property division ratio was set at one-third for Director Noh and two-thirds for Chairman Chey.
The court ordered Chairman Chey to pay the shortfall in Director Noh's share in cash.
Meanwhile, regarding the increase in the value of SK shares driven by the recent semiconductor boom, the court established April 16, 2024, the closing date of fact-finding arguments in the divorce lawsuit, as the benchmark date for calculating the shares subject to division.
At that time, SK's stock price was in the 160,000-won range, and it has since risen significantly.
The two, who married in 1988, have been undergoing divorce proceedings since 2015 when Chairman Chey publicly revealed the existence of a child born out of wedlock through the media.
The first-instance court ruled that Chairman Chey should pay Director Noh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in property division.
However, the second-instance court strongly rebuked Chairman Chey for infidelity during the marriage and ordered him to pay 2 billion won in alimony and 1.3808 trillion won in property division.
While the Supreme Court quashed the property division part last year, it finalized the divorce and the 2 billion won alimony.
(Photo: Yang Hyun-chul, Video Editing: Lee Sang-min)
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