{"id":50957,"date":"2025-10-16T07:39:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T07:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=50957"},"modified":"2025-10-16T07:39:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T07:39:52","slug":"s-korea-tycoon-escapes-paying-1bn-in-divorce-of-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=50957","title":{"rendered":"S Korea tycoon escapes paying $1bn in &#8216;divorce of the century&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>BBC:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Korea&#8217;s Supreme Court has struck down a lower court&#8217;s order for billionaire Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife a 1.38tn won ($1bn; \u00a3788m) settlement, in a case dubbed by local media as the &#8220;divorce of the century&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Citing a miscalculation that increased the value of the couple&#8217;s assets, it has ordered the case to be reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case has gripped South Korea as Mr Chey heads the powerful SK Group conglomerate while his ex-wife Roh So-young is the daughter of a former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The marriage unravelled in 2015 after Mr Chey admitted to fathering a child with his lover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1.38 trillion won payout was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cx99elxd5yro\">decided by a court in the capital Seoul in 2024<\/a>. It was considered the largest divorce settlement in South Korea&#8217;s history at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court said a 30bn won slush fund by Ms Roh&#8217;s father, former president Roh Tae-woo, had helped contribute to the growth of SK Group and could be considered as her contribution to the couple&#8217;s joint assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Chey then appealed the settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Thursday the Supreme Court ruled that the slush fund &#8220;appeared to have originated from bribes illegally received&#8221; by the former president and thus could not be considered part of the couple&#8217;s assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think it is very significant that the Supreme Court clearly declared that it was wrong to recognise that as a contribution to the couple&#8217;s joint property,&#8221; said Mr Chey&#8217;s lawyer, Lee Jae-geun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the Supreme Court upheld a 2bn won alimony payment for Ms Roh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shares of SK fell 5.4% after the ruling on Thursday, as it was seen to prolong Mr Chey&#8217;s legal battle with his ex-wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in the short term analysts believe a shake-up at SK Group is unlikely, as Mr Chey is not immediately compelled to raise funds for his divorce settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He controls key subsidiaries of the group such as SK Telecom, SK Square and SK Innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SK&#8217;s businesses span the telecommunications, energy, pharmaceuticals and semiconductor sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC: South Korea&#8217;s Supreme Court has struck down a lower court&#8217;s order for billionaire Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife a 1.38tn won ($1bn; \u00a3788m) settlement, in a case dubbed by local media as the &#8220;divorce of the century&#8221;. Citing a miscalculation that increased the value of the couple&#8217;s assets, it has ordered the case to be reviewed. The case has gripped South Korea as Mr Chey heads the powerful SK Group conglomerate while his ex-wife Roh So-young is the daughter of a former president. The marriage unravelled in 2015 after Mr Chey admitted to fathering a child with his&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50959,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50957\/revisions\/50959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}