Supreme Court to Rule on Chey Tae-won and Noh So-young's "Divorce of the Century" Appeal on the 16th

Yonhap News Agency

The Supreme Court will deliver its final verdict on October 16 in the so-called "divorce of the century" between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (65) and Art Center Nabi Director Noh So-young (64).

The First Division of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Seo Kyunghwan, will announce its ruling on the appeal in the divorce case between Chairman Chey and Director Noh at 10 a.m. on the 16th. This case, which was filed with the Supreme Court in July last year, is reaching its conclusion after one year and three months.

Chairman Chey filed for mediation for an uncontested divorce with Director Noh in July 2017, but after failing to reach an agreement in February 2018, the case proceeded to a formal lawsuit.

During the proceedings, in December 2019, Director Noh filed a countersuit demanding asset division. 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 as a division of assets.

The second instance, handled by the Family Division 2 of the Seoul High Court, estimated their combined assets at approximately 4 trillion won in May last year and ruled that Chairman Chey must pay 1.3808 trillion won, or 35%, to Director Noh, in addition to 2 billion won in alimony. Chairman Chey appealed to the Supreme Court.

One of the key issues in the trial is whether "special property," which is excluded from the division of assets, should be recognized. In particular, whether Chairman Chey's SK shares can be considered joint property is a central point of contention, and attention is also being paid to whether "Roh Tae-woo slush funds" were involved in the accumulation of these assets.