Chey Tae-won–Roh So-young Case Assigned to Supreme Court of Korea’s Second Division for Final Appeal; 244 Billion Won Property Division to Be Reexamined

[Financial News] The final appeal following remand in the property-division case involving SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Roh So-young has been assigned to the Supreme Court of Korea’s Second Division. Justice Kim Sung-soo will oversee the case, which is expected to enter a full review.
On the 28th, the Supreme Court of Korea assigned the final appeal following remand involving Chey and Roh to Special Division 2 and designated Justice Kim as the justice in charge of the case. Special Division 2 consists of Justice Kim and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Kwon Young-jun and Park Young-jae.
On August 24, the remand court ordered Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won. The amount represented about one-third of the approximately 2.9 trillion won in the couple’s joint assets—including shares in SK and its affiliates and real estate owned by Chey—which the court recognized as Roh’s share. Chey’s side later filed an application with the Seoul High Court, which handled the remand trial on property division, to amend (reduce) the scope of its appeal on August 31. The application means that it will no longer contest 700 billion won of the division award and will appeal the remaining 244 billion won.
Roh’s side has not filed a separate incidental appeal (cross-appeal). On the 20th, it submitted only a response rebutting the grounds for appeal filed by Chey’s side.
The Supreme Court is widely expected to focus its review on the arguments made by Chey’s side. His side maintains that the contribution attributed to former President Roh Tae-woo’s slush fund should not be recognized, and that the decision to factor in the rise in SK’s share price when calculating the property-division ratio also needs to be adjusted.
The first-instance court treated the SK shares as Chey’s separate property and excluded them from the assets subject to division. It set the property-division payment Chey would make to Roh at 66.5 billion won and compensation for emotional distress at 100 million won.
By contrast, the second-instance court blurred the boundary between separate and marital property. It accepted the claim that former President Roh had provided 30 billion won to Choi Jong-hyun, SK’s former chairman, and recognized Roh’s contribution to the SK shares. The court set the valuation date for the shares as April 16, 2024, the date oral arguments concluded in the appellate trial before the case was remanded. It ruled that Roh was entitled to 35% of the couple’s approximately 4 trillion won in joint assets and ordered a property-division payment of 1.3808 trillion won. Compensation for emotional distress was also increased to 2 billion won.
Last October, the Supreme Court of Korea overturned the property-division portion of the ruling, holding that the 30 billion won from former President Roh’s slush fund could not be considered a contribution to the formation of the couple’s assets. It left unchanged the 2 billion won in compensation for emotional distress set by the second-instance court.
Roh’s side is reportedly sticking to its position that the full amount should be paid in cash. According to a disclosure on the 2nd of this month, Chey plans to raise 944 billion won—the same amount as the property-division payment ordered in the remand trial—by selling 1,653,924 common shares of SK Inc.
[email protected] Chang-hun Lee Reporter