The divorce, involving the chairman of one of South Korea’s biggest companies, has gripped the nation.

by BBC NEWSShare

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The chairman of corporate giant SK Group has been ordered by a South Korean court to pay his ex-wife 944bn won (£483m; $644m) in a case that local media has called the “divorce of the century”.

The award, which still needs to be finalised, is below the initial 1.38tn won that chairman Chey Tae-won was told to pay Roh Soh-yeong in 2024.

It comes more than a decade after his marriage to Roh – the daughter of a former president – fell apart following the revelation he had fathered a child with another woman.

SK Group runs SK Hynix, the semiconductor giant that supplies chips to Nvidia and recently made a record-setting debut on the US stock market.

Chey’s lawyers said “Chairman Chey Tae-won is deeply sorry in that [the divorce] proceedings so far have caused concern to many people. We will share specific response to the verdict after we closely review the ruling.”

SK Group is one of South Korea’s chaebols – family-owned conglomerates that dominate the country’s economy.

The verdict comes after deliberation over the division of assets between Roh and Chey, who had been married for 35 years.

During the earlier trial in 2024, Roh’s legal team had successfully argued that Chey had received significant help from his ex-wife’s father, Roh Tae-woo, who had served as the country’s president between 1988 to 1993.

The court had determined that the strongman had given Chey 30bn Korean won from his slush fund in 1991, and told Chey to pay 1.38tn to his ex-wife.

But the Supreme Court overturned the verdict last year, ruling that the slush funds were illegally obtained and could not be considered as part of the couple’s assets.

The case has gripped South Korea.

SK Group began as a textile company in 1953 but quickly grew across a wide swath of industries to become one of South Korea’s biggest conglomerates.

Today, it is the second largest chaebol after the Samsung group. South Korean people buy phone plans from SK Telecom and fill their vehicles at SK petrol stations.

The group gained global prominence after its subsidiary SK Hynix found itself at the centre of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. In May, the chipmaker surpassed $1tn (£750bn) on the South Korean stock market.

As SK Hynix’s value soared, the SK Group and its chairman Chey’s status also rose.

Last month, President Lee Jae Myung commended Chey during the unveiling of a landmark AI investment plan, calling him and Samsung chairman JY Lee “Heroes of Korean People.”

The company also raised $26.5bn in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.