The Seoul High Court ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife Roh So-yeong 944 billion won (~$640M) after the Supreme Court sent the case back to the appellate court for further review. The award is smaller than last year’s 1.38 trillion won judgment; Chey had also faced a 2 billion won alimony order. The dispute involved contested claims about 30 billion won linked to former president Roh Tae-woo, which the Supreme Court excluded as a legal contribution to SK’s growth. Either party may appeal, potentially returning the case to the Supreme Court.
Seoul Court Orders SK Chairman Chey Tae-won To Pay 944 Billion Won In High-Profile Divorce Ruling
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won arrives at the Seoul High Court in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (Lee Young-hwan/Newsis via AP)
The Seoul High Court on Friday ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife, Roh So-yeong, 944 billion won (about $640 million) in a widely reported divorce settlement that South Korean media have dubbed the "divorce of the century." The decision follows a Supreme Court directive that sent the long-running dispute back to the appellate court for further review.
The award is smaller than the 1.38 trillion won (roughly $940 million) sum the high court imposed last year. Chey had previously been ordered to pay 2 billion won (about $1.3 million) in alimony.
Chey's net worth rose in recent months as shares of SK Hynix, the group’s semiconductor affiliate, climbed amid a global surge in demand for artificial intelligence technologies. That increase in asset value was a factor in judges’ assessments of equitable division, though the court carefully weighed multiple elements of the couple’s 30-year marriage.
Contested Evidence and Legal Backstory
Part of the high court's earlier ruling had cited allegations that former President Roh Tae-woo provided SK with 30 billion won (about $20.4 million) in so-called slush funds during his presidency. The Supreme Court, however, subsequently determined those payments could not be recognized as a legal contribution to SK's corporate growth, and ordered the case back to the appellate court for re-evaluation.
Chey and Roh married in 1988 and have three children. Chey filed for divorce in 2017 after revealing a relationship with another woman and that he had fathered a child with her. Neither Chey nor Roh attended the high court’s hearing on Friday. Either party may appeal the latest decision, which could return the case to the Supreme Court.
Broader Context
The ruling arrives as Chey accompanies South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to the United States. President Lee is expected to meet U.S. tech leaders in San Francisco — including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang — as part of efforts to attract investment for South Korea’s artificial intelligence and semiconductor initiatives.
What’s next: Either party can lodge an appeal, potentially sending the case back to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the decision underscores how changes in asset values — driven by market forces such as the AI chip boom — can affect high-value family law disputes.
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