Chewy-on-SK Chairman's 1 Trillion Won Divorce Settlement Nears Finality As Appeal Deadline Approaches

It will soon be decided whether the property division lawsuit between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (65) and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong (65), which has continued for over nine years, will come to an end.

According to legal circles on the 9th, the deadline for both sides to file a final appeal against the remand trial ruling on their property division lawsuit is Saturday, the 15th.

Under the Civil Procedure Act, if the final day falls on a Saturday or a public holiday, the deadline is extended to the next first business day, making the practical deadline the 17th.

If neither Chairman Chey nor Director Roh files a final appeal or if they submit a waiver of appeal during this period, the remand trial ruling—which orders Chairman Chey to pay Director Roh 944 billion won in property division—will be finalized as is.

This means that the legal battle, which began with Chairman Chey's application for divorce mediation in 2017, will finally conclude after about nine years.

However, if either side files a final appeal, the case will once again be subject to review by the Supreme Court.

Since legal circles generally evaluate the remand trial ruling as a decisive victory for Director Roh, it is widely expected that if anyone appeals, it will likely be Chairman Chey.

The court handling the first instance of the divorce lawsuit viewed SK shares as Chairman Chey's separate property and ordered him to pay Director Roh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in cash for property division.

In May 2024, the second-instance court significantly increased the alimony Chairman Chey must pay to 2 billion won and the property division amount to 1.3808 trillion won.

On the 24th of last month, the remand trial court followed the intent of the Supreme Court ruling while determining that the SK shares held by Chairman Chey are indeed subject to property division, calculating the property division amount at 944 billion won.

This is evaluated as the largest property division amount ever recorded in publicly known divorce lawsuits involving South Korean chaebol families.

The remand trial court set the reference date for calculating the value of the shares subject to division as April 16, 2024, which was the closing date of arguments in the fact-finding trial (appeal trial) of the divorce lawsuit.

While rejecting Director Roh's argument that the calculation should be based on June 26 of this year—the closing date of arguments in the remand trial—the court reflected the sharp rise in stock prices between the two dates into the calculation of the property division ratio.

Following the ruling, Chairman Chey's legal representative stated, "Through the process of dissolving a marriage spanning nearly 20 years, the divorce was finalized by last year's Supreme Court ruling, and the remand trial ruling on property division has now been pronounced. Chairman Chey feels apologetic for causing concern to many people throughout this entire process."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.