South Korean Court Orders SK Group Chairman to Pay $644 Million in Divorce Settlement

A South Korean court has ordered Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, to pay his ex-wife 944 billion won, about $644 million, in a divorce settlement that has been running through the courts for years, according to the BBC.

The ruling still needs to be finalized. It's a smaller number than the 1.38 trillion won, north of $1 billion, that a lower court ordered Chey to pay Roh Soh-yeong back in 2024.

Chey and Roh were married 35 years before the split. Roh is the daughter of Roh Tae-woo, who served as South Korea's president from 1988 to 1993. The marriage fell apart publicly after Chey admitted he had fathered a child with another woman, the BBC reported.

Why the Number Dropped

The original, higher settlement leaned heavily on an argument from Roh's legal team: that Chey built part of his fortune with help from her father, who allegedly funneled 30 billion won to Chey from a presidential slush fund in 1991.

South Korea's Supreme Court threw that reasoning out last year, ruling that money from an illegally obtained slush fund can't be counted as marital assets subject to division, according to the BBC. That sent the case back down for reconsideration, and this week's figure reflects the court excluding those funds from the calculation.

Chey's legal team responded to the new ruling by saying, "Chairman Chey Tae-won is deeply sorry in that [the divorce] proceedings so far have caused concern to many people. We will share specific response to the verdict after we closely review the ruling," according to the BBC.

Why This Is a Big Deal in South Korea

SK Group isn't a normal company going through a normal divorce. It's one of South Korea's chaebols, the family-run conglomerates that dominate huge chunks of the national economy. SK Group is the second-largest chaebol behind Samsung, running everything from SK Telecom phone plans to SK gas stations to, most importantly right now, SK Hynix.

SK Hynix is a semiconductor giant that supplies chips to Nvidia and has ridden the AI boom to significant gains on the South Korean stock market, according to the BBC.

Chey isn't some obscure businessman. President Lee Jae Myung publicly praised him last month, alongside Samsung chairman JY Lee, calling them "Heroes of Korean People" during a national AI investment announcement, per the BBC. This is a man at the center of South Korea's AI-driven economic moment, now also at the center of its most talked-about celebrity divorce.

AP News flagged the story in its business roundup but didn't include the underlying legal detail about the Supreme Court's reversal or the slush fund dispute. Readers relying on AP's summary alone would miss why the settlement number dropped by more than half a billion dollars between 2024 and now. The BBC's reporting on this detail explains the whole reason this case has dragged on and shifted in Roh's disfavor.

The ruling "still needs to be finalized," per the BBC, meaning further appeals or procedural steps are possible before $644 million actually changes hands. Neither side has indicated publicly whether they'll appeal again. SK Group has not yet responded to BBC's request for comment on the latest figure.

This fight has already gone through a district court verdict, a Supreme Court reversal on the slush-fund assets, and now a revised award. Whether either side pushes for another round in South Korea's court system remains an open question. Given how much money and reputation is on the line for one of the country's most powerful families, further appeals are possible.