The Supreme Court will hand down a ruling on the divorce asset partitioning lawsuit between Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, and Noh So-young, director of Art Center Nabi, on the 16th. It comes about 1 year and 5 months after the appellate court in May last year ordered, "Chairman Chey shall pay Director Noh 1.3808 trillion won in asset partitioning money and 2 billion won in alimony."
The Supreme Court's First Petty Bench (Presiding Justice Seo Kyung-hwan) plans to proceed with the pronouncement of the final appeal ruling in the divorce case between Chairman Chey and Director Noh starting at 10 a.m. that day. After it became known that the case was discussed at the Supreme Court's full bench meeting last month, there was speculation it might be formally referred to the full bench, but the ruling will be handed down by a petty bench with four justices.
Chairman Chey and Director Noh married at the Blue House in September 1988. In December 2015, Chairman Chey disclosed to the media that he had a child born out of wedlock. In July 2017, Chairman Chey applied for divorce mediation against Director Noh, but the mediation did not materialize due to Noh's opposition. Then Chairman Chey Tae-won filed for divorce in February 2018. In December 2019, Director Noh filed a countersuit seeking 300 million won in alimony and partitioning (50%) of Chairman Chey's shares in SK Corp.
The key issue on final appeal is whether to view Chairman Chey's SK Corp shares—on which the first and second trials diverged—as subject to asset partitioning. Earlier, in December 2022, the court of first instance accepted Director Noh's divorce claim and ordered Chairman Chey to pay 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in cash as asset partitioning, totaling 66.6 billion won. However, it found that Chairman Chey's SK Corp shares were not subject to asset partitioning. Both sides appealed the first-instance ruling.
In May last year, the appellate court ruled, "Chairman Chey shall pay Director Noh 1.3808 trillion won in asset partitioning money and 2 billion won in alimony." That is roughly 20 times more than the first instance. Unlike the first instance, the appellate court regarded Chairman Chey's SK Corp shares as subject to asset partitioning. The appellate panel found that 30 billion won, presumed to be slush funds of former President Roh Tae-woo, flowed to the side of the late Chairman Chey Jong-hyun of SK Group and became seed money for the then Sunkyong (SK) Group. The basis was Director Noh's disclosure at the appellate level of her mother Kim Ok-suk's memo titled "Sunkyong 30 billion" and six promissory notes of 5 billion won each.
Another issue in the case is that the appellate panel mistakenly wrote 100 won per share, instead of 1,000 won, for the value of Daehan Telecom stock, the predecessor of SK Corp, in the written judgment, and then corrected it. Chairman Chey's side argued the judgment contained "a fatal error" and that the ruling must change because the contribution ratio to the stock's appreciation differs. When the appellate court did not accept this, Chairman Chey filed a reappeal. Although the reappeal was reviewed separately by the Supreme Court's Second Petty Bench, there is a view that a conclusion could be reached along with the main ruling that day.
If the Supreme Court dismisses the appeal that day, the appellate ruling of "1.3808 trillion won in asset partitioning and 2 billion won in alimony" will be finalized. In that case, Chairman Chey may have to sell a substantial portion of his SK Corp shares to carry out the asset partitioning to Director Noh. Conversely, if the Supreme Court reverses and remands on grounds such as insufficient deliberation or misinterpretation of the law, the Seoul High Court will hear the case again.