The property division lawsuit between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong is headed back to the Supreme Court.

Chairman Chey's legal team filed an appeal with the 1st Family Division of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-joo), which handled the remanding trial of the property division lawsuit, on the 14th, the deadline for filing a re-appeal.

This comes in defiance of the remanding trial ruling that ordered Chairman Chey to pay 944 billion won in cash to Director Roh.

Chairman Chey's legal representatives released a statement saying, "Chairman Chey submitted the appeal after deep consideration of various circumstances," and added, "We will approach future procedures with the mindset of minimizing negative impacts on shareholders and group management."

The Supreme Court is a court of law that reviews issues regarding legal misinterpretation or insufficient examination, rather than matters concerning fact-finding.

Consequently, Chairman Chey's side is expected to argue in the Supreme Court appeal that there were legal misinterpretations in the remanding trial ruling regarding the calculation of the property division ratio or scale.

However, the prevailing view in the legal community is that the likelihood of the outcome being overturned in this final appeal is low, given that the Supreme Court already made a judgment once when it remanded the case in October of last year, and the remanding trial followed the Supreme Court's ruling intent.

As a result, some analysts suggest that Chairman Chey's re-appeal is intended to buy time to raise the 944 billion won to be paid to Director Roh and to avoid delay interest.

Had the remanding trial ruling been finalized, Chairman Chey would have been required to pay a 5 percent annual delay interest from the day after the finalization date until the payment is completed.

This amounts to roughly 47.2 billion won per year, or about 130 million won per day.

With this latest appeal, the legal battle between the two, which has continued for about nine years since 2017, is expected to persist for the time being.

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

The breakup became public after Chairman Chey sent a letter to a daily newspaper in 2015 revealing the existence of a child out of wedlock.

In 2017, Chairman Chey applied for divorce mediation, but it fell through, leading to a formal lawsuit in February of the following year, while Director Roh filed a counter-lawsuit in December 2019 stating she would agree to a divorce.

In December 2022, the first instance of the divorce trial 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 determined that SK shares held by Chairman Chey were unique property not subject to division.

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

The court viewed that former President Roh's "30 billion won in slush funds" and Director Roh's contributions played a role in the growth of SK Group, making SK shares subject to property division as well.

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

The second-instance court's ruling setting the alimony at 2 billion won was finalized as is, leaving only the property division to be handled in the remanding trial.

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

The property division ratio was set at one-third for Director Roh and two-thirds for Chairman Chey.