The Seoul High Court has ordered South Korean tycoon Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife 1.38 trillion won ($1bn; £788m) in cash as divorce settlement.
This is the country’s largest ever divorce settlement after a court ruling on Thursday, May 30.
The BBC reports that the court ruling comes nearly a decade after Mr Chey’s marriage collapsed after he had engaged in an extramarital affair and fathered a child with his lover.
According to the court ruling on Thursday, Roh So-young, the ex-wife of Mr. Chey whom he was married to for 35 years – was entitled to a portion of his company shares.
Lawyers for Mr Chey – chairman of the powerful SK Group conglomerate – said he would appeal, claiming the court had taken “Roh’s one-sided claim as factual”.
It appears that the amount awarded to Ms Roh is a significant increase from an earlier settlement of 66.5bn awarded to Ms Roh in 2022 by a lower court.
However, the lower family court rejected Ms Roh’s request to be given a portion of Mr Chey’s SK shares.
But in court on Thursday, the High Court overturned the previous ruling and ruled that the shares should be considered joint property.
In its verdict, the court stated that “it was reasonable to rule that, as his wife, Roh played a role in increasing the value of SK Group and Chey’s business activity”.
The court put Mr Chey’s wealth at around 4tn won, meaning Ms Roh – with whom Mr Chey had three children – would take an estimated 35%.
It also found that Ms Roh had helped ease regulatory hurdles for Mr Chey’s business and that her father – former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo – had “played the role of a protective shield” for SK’s ex-chairman Chey Jong-hyon.
The court said Mr Chey had not shown “any signs of remorse for his foul behaviour in the course of the trial… nor respect for monogamy” and said the new settlement took into account Ms Roh’s suffering over her ex-husband’s extramarital affair.
Mr Chey’s lawyers argued that, rather than his ex-wife’s political connections enhancing his business, they had been a disadvantage.
Shares in SK Inc – which is one of the world’s biggest makers of semiconductors and also has interests in telecoms, chemicals and energy – jumped 9% following the ruling.
Source:bbc.com
