Judges at the Seoul High Court were expected on Friday to deliver a ruling in the divorce case of Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, and his estranged wife Roh Sook-young, a decision that could rank as the largest divorce settlement in South Korean history and test the ownership structure of one of the country’s biggest conglomerates.
The case has drawn attention far beyond the family because of what is at stake. Chey, whose fortune is estimated at about $5.5 billion, controls SK Group, a sprawling empire that spans memory chips, telecommunications, energy, and batteries, and includes SK Hynix, one of the world’s two dominant makers of high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial-intelligence servers.
Roh, the daughter of former President Roh Tae-woo, originally asked the court to award her 42.29 percent of the SK shares held by Chey. That demand, had it been granted in full, could have threatened his control of the group’s cross-shareholding structure. She later revised her request to a cash settlement, a shift that lawyers following the case said reflected the difficulty of valuing and transferring stakes without destabilizing the company.
The central question before the court is how much of SK’s growth should be credited to Roh. Korean civil law allows judges to split marital assets according to each spouse’s contribution, and in chaebol families, courts have increasingly weighed the unpaid work of wives who supported their husbands during the building of business empires. Roh has argued that she stood by Chey through the early, difficult years of his career and helped create the conditions for his success.
Chey’s side has disputed that framing, arguing that SK was built largely through corporate acquisition and expansion rather than through Roh’s efforts. The couple married in 1988, when Chey was a young executive at a much smaller company, and the group’s rise to the top tier of Korean industry unfolded over the following decades.
The personal history has made the case unusually public. Chey acknowledged in 2015 a relationship with another woman, and his public statements about that relationship have been cited repeatedly in the proceedings. Korean courts have historically taken fault into account in divorce cases, and Roh’s lawyers have argued that the conduct of the marriage entitles her to more than a mechanical split of assets.
The market consequences are the part investors are watching most closely. SK Hynix has been a primary beneficiary of the AI-driven boom in memory chips, supplying high-bandwidth memory to Nvidia and riding a wave of orders that has made the chip unit the crown jewel of the group. A ruling that forced Chey to part with a large block of shares could complicate succession planning and governance at a moment when stability matters.
The case also lands at a delicate moment for Korean corporate governance. Minority shareholders and activist funds have pressed chaebol leaders for years to simplify cross-shareholding structures, and the country’s inheritance and gift taxes make wealth transfers between generations expensive. A court decision that reshuffles a controlling stake would ripple through that system.
Lawyers briefed on the case said a cash award, while record-setting, would be the cleaner outcome for the company. “The market can price a cash payment,” one said. “It has more trouble pricing an uncertain shift in the shareholder register.”
The sums involved are large by any measure. South Korea’s courts have awarded some of Asia’s biggest divorce settlements, but none has touched the scale of the fortune at issue in this case. Chey’s personal wealth is concentrated in SK Group equity, much of it pledged or structured through holding vehicles, which is one reason a cash settlement was seen as the more practical path.
The ruling on Friday is not necessarily the end. Either side can appeal, and the case could move to the Supreme Court, extending a legal battle that has already wound through the courts for years. The first-instance judgment was appealed by both parties, and the case has been before the High Court since.
For SK’s outside investors, the calculation is simpler. The group’s shares trade on fundamentals, memory prices, AI demand, and the cycle that drives them, and the divorce is one of those governance risks that rarely moves the stock unless it escalates. Analysts said a share-based award would be the scenario to watch; a cash settlement would likely leave the company’s structure intact.
Roh’s original demand for 42.29 percent was not a round number, and lawyers said the precision reflected months of negotiation and valuation work before the case reached the courts. The figure was chosen, her lawyers have said, to match the stake that represented her contribution to the couple’s shared wealth, a claim Chey’s side has called excessive. Her shift to cash was widely read as a sign that both sides preferred a settlement they could execute without breaking the company’s ownership chain.
Friday’s ruling will settle the question of how much, and in what form. Whatever the number, it will stand as a marker for how Korean courts value the contributions behind the country’s corporate dynasties, and how far the chaebol system has come from the days when family disputes stayed behind closed doors.
