Supreme Court reverses Chey Tae-won divorce settlement

The Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned an appellate ruling that had ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay 1.38 trillion won to his ex-wife, Noh So-young, director of Art Center Nabi, as part of their divorce settlement. The court said the appeals court had overstated Noh’s contribution to the couple’s roughly 4 trillion won fortune and ordered the property division to be recalculated.

The Supreme Court’s First Division, led by Justice Seo Kyung-hwan, overturned the appeals court’s decision and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court. The case reached the top court in July last year and was decided a year and three months later.

The appeals court had valued the couple’s combined assets at about 4.011 trillion won and awarded 35 percent to Noh. The court based its decision on the finding that funds provided by Noh’s father, former President Roh Tae-woo, to the late SK Chairman Chey Jong-hyun had helped grow SK, reflecting Noh’s indirect contribution.

The Supreme Court rejected that reasoning. It said that even if Roh had provided about 30 billion won to Chey Jong-hyun around 1991, the money likely came from bribes Roh received while in office and therefore has no legal protection. Such funds cannot be counted as Noh’s contribution to the couple’s assets.

The court also said about 994.2 billion won that Chey had gifted to his younger brother, Chey Jae-won, and others should be excluded from divisible marital property because the transfers were part of legitimate business activities before the couple’s breakup. As a result, Noh’s share is expected to fall to the low hundreds of billions of won. The 2 billion won alimony award remains unchanged.

After the ruling, Chey’s lawyer said the Supreme Court had corrected legal and factual errors in the appeals court judgment. Noh’s lawyer declined to comment. The divorce case, filed in February 2018, will return to the Seoul High Court family division for recalculation, with a final decision possible next year.


송혜미기자 1am@donga.com