Billionaire Ordered to Pay $645 Million in Landmark Divorce

Person holding a lawsuit document on a wooden desk — Photo: Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock

In South Korea’s “divorce of the century,” a court just confirmed a massive cash payout for the ex‑wife while leaving her locked out of the artificial intelligence stock boom that helped create the fortune.

Story Snapshot

A Seoul court ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife Roh Soh-yeong 944 billion won, about $645 million, in property division.
Judges said Roh’s homemaking, childcare, and public work for SK helped build and protect the couple’s wealth, earning her one-third of their marital assets.
The Supreme Court earlier threw out the biggest part of her claim, ruling a 30 billion won slush fund from her father could not count as her “contribution.”
The new ruling treats Chey’s SK shareholdings as marital property but still leaves him in control of the conglomerate and its artificial intelligence-driven gains.

Record divorce ruling in South Korea’s corporate elite

A Seoul High Court has now ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife, Art Center Nabi director Roh Soh-yeong, 944 billion won in cash, one of the largest divorce property awards in South Korean history. The court set the split at two-thirds of the marital assets to Chey and one-third to Roh, after estimating their joint property and recalculating earlier figures. This new amount replaces a 2024 ruling that had ordered Chey to pay 1.38 trillion won, which was later partially overturned.

Judges said Chey’s shares in SK companies, built during the marriage, were not just his alone but part of the couple’s joint wealth. The court found that the value of these shares rose sharply while they were married and that both spouses played a role in that growth. That matters beyond one marriage, because it shows courts can treat founder-held stakes in giant firms as marital assets, not untouchable corporate property, even when those stakes sit at the center of major national companies.

How the court weighed homemaking, family ties, and a tainted slush fund

The latest decision leans heavily on the idea that building a fortune is rarely a solo act, even when only one spouse’s name is on the shares. The court said Chey’s management boosted the value of his SK holdings, but Roh’s homemaking, childcare, and public-facing work linked to SK Group also helped preserve and increase their joint assets. That view tracks with a broader shift in divorce law, where unpaid labor in the home and social support for a spouse’s career are treated as real economic contributions, not just “personal” sacrifices.

At the same time, the Supreme Court pushed back hard on one of Roh’s boldest claims: that a 30 billion won fund her father, former President Roh Tae-woo, allegedly sent to Chey’s family counted as her contribution to SK’s rise. The top court found that money likely came from illegal bribes and said it could not be treated as part of the marital asset pool. On remand, the High Court followed that guidance, dropping those funds from its math and still arriving at a massive payout based on other factors.

AI boom riches, control of SK, and what Roh did not get

Chey’s fortune surged in recent years as SK Hynix became a key supplier of high‑bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence systems, including processors made by Nvidia. Media reports say the new ruling looked at the sharp rise in SK share values, yet based the division mainly on assets formed during the marriage rather than on the very latest market spikes. In other words, the court recognized the boom but tried not to simply hand Roh a slice of every future artificial intelligence gain tied to Chey’s controlling stake.

Chey Tae-won keeps control of SK despite 944 billion won divorce ruling https://t.co/2szEFfhEUu

— KOREA PRO (@southkoreapro) July 27, 2026

For many readers, the striking part is what the ex‑wife did not receive. Roh gets cash equal to roughly one‑third of the marital estate, but she does not get voting control in SK or a direct say over how the conglomerate rides the artificial intelligence wave. Chey keeps his leadership position and the power that comes with it, even as he scrambles to find the money, possibly by selling assets or pledging shares as collateral. That split captures a tension familiar in America too: the system may punish bad personal behavior and reward unpaid support work, yet still leave ultimate economic power in the hands of the same small elite.

Why this “divorce of the century” hits a nerve beyond Korea

South Korean media call this the “divorce of the century,” but the deeper story will sound familiar to many Americans who worry about how courts and governments treat ordinary people versus the wealthy. Here, a court did something many on both the left and right say they want: it treated homemaking and family support as real contributions and refused to bless wealth built partly on dirty political money. Yet the outcome still leaves a billionaire in charge of an artificial intelligence‑fueled empire while his ex‑wife walks away with cash but no seat at the table.

For conservatives who distrust global corporate elites and for liberals who fear growing gaps between the haves and the have‑nots, this case shows how even “tough” rulings can leave the basic power structure intact. A judge can scold a tycoon for infidelity and order a record payout, but the tycoon still runs the company shaping key technology and jobs. That pattern echoes a broader frustration many Americans feel at home: the system occasionally corrects excess, yet rarely changes who actually calls the shots.