Two-Timing Tycoon Ordered to Pay Ex-Wife $1B in Cash

Divorce can be expensive, especially when you're a billionaire found to have fathered a child with your lover behind the back of your wife of 35 years. Such is the case for Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, South Korea's second-largest conglomerate. A decade after his marriage dissolved, the country's High Court has ruled the tycoon owes $1 billion in cash to the woman he wronged in what the BBC reports is South Korea's largest ever divorce settlement. In 2022, a lower court rejected Roh So-young's claim to a portion of Chey's company shares in ruling that she was owed about $48 million. But in a Thursday ruling, the High Court said the shares should be considered joint property. "As his wife, Roh played a role in increasing the value of SK Group and Chey's business activity," the court said.

The court determined Roh, mother to three of Chey's children, had helped ease regulatory hurdles for her husband's business, while her father, former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, had offered "intangible help" to SK's former chairman and Chey's father, Chey Jong-hyon, playing "the role of a protective shield," per AFP. The court, which also factored in Roh's suffering, decided she was owed 35% of Chey's wealth, estimated at $2.8 billion. It noted Chey hadn't shown "remorse for his foul behavior ... nor respect for monogamy." Lawyers for Chey said the court had taken "Roh's one-sided claim as factual" and that an appeal would follow. They argued Roh's political connections had hindered the business, not the opposite. (More divorce settlement stories.)