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 the legal community, the deadline for both sides to file a re-appeal against the remand appellate ruling in their property division lawsuit is August 14.

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

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

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

Given that the legal community generally evaluates the remand appellate ruling as a decisive victory for Director Roh Soh-yeong, it is widely expected that Chairman Chey would be the one to re-appeal if anyone does.

The first-instance court for the divorce lawsuit viewed SK shares as Chairman Chey's exclusive property and ruled that Chairman Chey should 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 substantially increased the alimony Chairman Chey must pay to 2 billion won and the property division amount to 1.3808 trillion won.

On July 24, the remand appellate 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 in a divorce lawsuit involving a domestic conglomerate family known to the public.

The remand appellate court set the base date for calculating the value of the shares subject to division as April 16, 2024, which was the closing date of arguments in the factual trial (appellate trial) of the divorce lawsuit.

While it rejected Director Roh's argument that the calculation should be based on June 26, the closing date of arguments in the remand appeal, it reflected the circumstance that stock prices rose significantly between the two dates in calculating the property division ratio.

Following the ruling, Chairman Chey's side stated, "The divorce was finalized by last year's Supreme Court ruling in the process of dissolving a marriage of nearly 20 years, and the remand appellate ruling on property division has now been sentenced," adding, "Chairman Chey deeply apologizes for causing concern to many people throughout the process so far."

(Photo: Yonhap News)