Will Chey Tae-won Pay Roh Soh-yeong 944 Billion Won? Ruling Finalized Today Without Appeal

Whether the property division lawsuit between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (65) and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong (65) will conclude after about nine years comes to a head today, August 14.

Today (August 14) is the final day of the appeal period against the remand ruling in their property division lawsuit.

If either side files an appeal today, the case will once again be subject to review by the Supreme Court.

If both sides do not appeal by 11:59:59 PM today, the remand ruling ordering Chairman Chey to pay 944 billion won in cash to Director Roh will be finalized starting at midnight on August 15.

If Chairman Chey fails to pay the money on time, he is required to pay a 5 percent annual delay interest from the day following the finalization of the ruling until full repayment, which amounts to approximately 47.2 billion won per year, or 130 million won per day.

Accordingly, the general interpretation within the legal community is that delay interest will begin to accrue from August 16, the day after August 15 when the ruling is finalized.

However, there is also an analysis that, in accordance with Article 157 of the Civil Act which stipulates that the first day is included when a period begins at midnight, August 15 should also be viewed as a delay interest accrual date.

As of today, neither side has publicly disclosed its position regarding whether they will appeal.

Given that the prevailing analysis in the legal community is that the remand ruling is a landslide victory for Director Roh, prospects are low that Director Roh will appeal.

On the other hand, observations suggest that Chairman Chey's side might appeal to avoid the burden of delay interest and buy time to secure cash.

Chairman Chey, the eldest son of the late former SK Chairman Chey Jong-hyun, and Director Roh, the daughter of the late former President Roh Tae-woo, met while studying abroad at the University of Chicago, married in 1988, and have three children.

Dubbed the "marriage of the century" and drawing widespread attention, the marriage breakdown became public in 2015 when Chairman Chey sent a letter to a daily newspaper revealing the existence of an extramarital child.

Afterwards, Chairman Chey applied for a divorce mediation in 2017, but it fell through, leading to a formal lawsuit in February of the following year.

In December 2019, Director Roh filed a counter-lawsuit stating that she would agree to a divorce.

In December 2022, the first trial of the divorce lawsuit ruled that Chairman Chey should pay Director Roh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in cash for property division.

The court judged that the SK shares held by Chairman Chey were unique property not subject to division.

In May 2024, the second trial substantially increased the alimony Chairman Chey must pay to 2 billion won and the property division amount to 1.3808 trillion yuan.

Because former President Roh's "30 billion won in slush funds" and Director Roh's contributions played a role in SK Group's growth, the court concluded that SK shares were also subject to property division.

However, in October of last year, the Supreme Court sent the case back for a retrial, stating that former President Roh's slush funds were illegal funds, and even if this money flowed into SK, it could not be factored in as Director Roh's contribution in property division.

At this time, the second-trial decision setting alimony at 2 billion won was finalized as is, leaving only property division to be addressed in the remand trial.

On July 24, the remand trial court followed the purport of the Supreme Court ruling while judging 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 a divorce lawsuit involving a Korean chaebol family known to the public.

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