Chairman of South Korean tech giant ordered to pay ex-wife £485m in divorce case

A South Korean court has ordered billionaire SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife 944 billion won (£485 million) in a case that the national media dubbed the “divorce of the century”.

The Seoul High Court’s ruling came months after the Supreme Court ordered a further review by the appellate court of the divorce case between Mr Chey and Roh So-yeong, the daughter of former South Korean president Roh Tae-woo.

The award to Ms Roh, the director of a Seoul art museum, was lower than a 1.38 trillion won (£709 million) settlement ordered by the high court last year. Mr Chey also was previously ordered to pay two billion won (£1 million) in alimony.

The value of Mr Chey’s assets increased in recent months. Shares of SK Hynix, SK’s semiconductor affiliate, have surged with the global artificial intelligence boom.

Mr Chey and Ms Roh married in 1988 and have three children. Mr Chey filed for divorce in 2017 after revealing he was in a relationship with another woman and had a child with her.

The case can be sent back to the Supreme Court if appeals are filed by Mr Chey or Ms Roh, who did not attend Friday’s high court ruling.

Mr Chey is among the South Korean business leaders travelling to the United States with President Lee Jae Myung, who is expected to meet US tech leaders including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Open AI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang in San Francisco to promote investment into South Korean AI and semiconductor initiatives.