A remand ruling ordered Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, to pay 944 billion won in asset partitioning to Roh Soh-yeong, director of Art Center Nabi. The court included Chey's equity in SK㈜ in the scope of partitioning but calculated the stock value based on the closing of arguments in the appellate divorce trial.
The Seoul High Court's Family Division 1 (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-joo, senior judge) delivered the ruling on the 24th at the sentencing hearing in the remand trial over the asset partitioning suit between the chairman and the director.
The amount is 436.8 billion won less than the 1.3808 trillion won in asset partitioning recognized before remand on appeal. Separately, 2 billion won in alimony already finalized by the Supreme Court must be paid.
The court included SK㈜ shares owned by the chairman in the asset partitioning and set the partitioning ratio for all assets subject to division at two-thirds for the chairman and one-third for the director. It ordered the partitioning to be paid in cash by the chairman to the director.
The reference date for the stock value was set as Apr. 16, 2024, when arguments ended in the appellate trial, the fact-finding phase of the divorce suit. It did not apply the surge in the stock price as of the closing of arguments in the remand trial.
The court found that the chairman's management activities influenced the sharp rise in SK㈜'s stock price after the closing of arguments on appeal. However, to divide the marital property fairly, it considered the stock's rise when calculating the partitioning ratio, not in the asset valuation.
It also recognized that the director's household, childcare, and external activities contributed to the chairman's management activities and to maintaining and increasing the value of SK㈜ shares. Accordingly, it set the director's partitioning ratio at one-third, slightly lower than the 35% set on appeal before remand.
By contrast, it did not reflect in the partitioning ratio the claim that the late former President Roh Tae-woo delivered 30 billion won in slush funds to the camp of the late SK patriarch Choi Jong-hyun. The decision followed the Supreme Court's ruling last Oct. that funds of clear illegality cannot be deemed lawful contributions to asset formation.
It also excluded from partitioning the shares the chairman gifted to relatives as part of maintaining control and management activities before the marriage broke down, on the ground that those assets were not held as of the closing of arguments in the fact-finding phase.
The legal dispute between the chairman and the director began when the chairman filed for divorce mediation in July 2017. In first instance, in Dec. 2022, the court recognized 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in asset partitioning, and on appeal in May 2024 raised the alimony to 2 billion won and the asset partitioning to 1.3808 trillion won.
Last Oct., the Supreme Court finalized the divorce and alimony portions and remanded only the asset partitioning. If either side contests the ruling today, the case will go back to the Supreme Court.