A South Korean Tech Titan Left His Wife. A Massive Divorce Battle Over The Wealth Followed

In one of South Korea’s highest-profile divorce cases, the ex-wife of a tech billionaire failed to win a bigger slice of his wealth.

CNN reported that SK GroupChairman Chey Tae-won was ordered by a court to pay his ex-wife, Roh Soh-yeong, $644 million. The order might be the end of a divorce battle that has dragged on for a decade.

At issue was the fact that the value of SK Group had spiked thanks to AI and demand for memory chips made by its subsidiary, SK Hynix. CNN reported that the Seoul High Court ruled the shares be valued at the date that the appellate court concluded its hearing in 2024. That was before the AI boom drove the price up.

However, the court’s decision also came in at below what the 2024 ruling had awarded her. That first ruling would have given Roh around $1 billion, according to CNN.

The New York Times reported that the settlement still is one of the largest in South Korean history. Roh had originally sought more than 40 percent of Tae-won’s wealth, estimated at $5.3 billion. The newspaper reported that it was unclear whether this would be the end of the dispute, or whether there might be further appeals.

“During the marriage, the value of the shares held by ​Chairman Chey increased significantly due to ​his business activities,​” the court said on Friday, according to the New York Times. “But Ms. Roh contributed ​to this through household management, child-rearing, and external activities related to the SK Group.​”

The couple married in 1988, when Roh’s father ruled the country. A former army general, he had benefited from a military coup in 1979. He led South Korea from 1988 to 1993. The newspaper reported that he eventually served 17 years in prison for taking millions in bribes.

In 2015, Chey announced he was leaving Roh for another woman who was 15 years younger and with whom he had fathered a child.

“Though I tried to mend our relationship — even turning to religion — every attempt only proved that a life together was impossible. I met someone who offered me true emotional solace,” Chey stated in a public letter according to the New York Times.

After Chey’s admission, CNN reported that both parties filed for divorce with Roh asking for an alimony payment of $260,000, plus 42.29 percent of Chey’s SK Group stock holdings. The decade-long battle that has followed has been called the “divorce of the century.”