Homemaking Claims Billion-Dollar Slice

A South Korean court just cut a “divorce of the century” payout but still tied nearly a billion dollars to the AI-fueled rise of a family conglomerate, raising big questions about who really owns explosive tech wealth.

Story Snapshot

Seoul High Court ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife about $644 million after retrial.
Judges treated his shares in SK’s holding company as **marital property**, crediting her homemaking and public work.
South Korea’s Supreme Court removed an earlier $1 billion award tied to illegal slush funds but kept alimony.
Case shows how soaring AI-era stock gains can be pulled into divorce fights and threaten founder control.

Near-Billion-Dollar Payout After Years of Court Battles

A Seoul appeals court ordered SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his ex-wife, Roh Soh-yeong, 944 billion won in property division, equal to about $644 million. That amount came after years of legal fighting and replaces an even larger 1.38 trillion won award that made global headlines. Reporters in South Korea call this the country’s “divorce of the century” because of the huge sums and the long battle between a major tech tycoon and the daughter of a former president.

The same court also left in place a 2 billion won alimony award, which had already survived earlier appeals. That alimony traces back to findings that Chey’s misconduct, including infidelity and a child born outside marriage, broke the trust in the relationship and helped end the marriage. Together, the property award and alimony make this one of the largest personal legal judgments in South Korean history and a major test of how courts handle family wealth tied to cutting-edge technology.

From $1 Billion Down to $644 Million: What Changed

In 2024, the Seoul High Court first stunned markets by ordering Chey to pay 1.38 trillion won and 2 billion won in alimony, accepting Roh’s claim to a much larger share of the couple’s property. That ruling treated money funneled from her father, former President Roh Tae-woo, as part of her contribution to SK Group’s growth. Judges said that 30 billion won helped seed the family business and helped justify seeing Chey’s stake in SK Inc. as joint marital wealth.

South Korea’s Supreme Court stepped in the next year and partially overturned the huge 1.38 trillion won award. The top court ruled that even if those 30 billion won in slush funds did reach SK Group, they came from illegal bribes and could not count as Roh’s personal contribution for dividing marital assets. The Supreme Court upheld the 2 billion won alimony but sent the property division question back for recalculation. That move signaled that the most aggressive version of Roh’s claim was too broad under South Korean law.

Courts Still Call SK Shares Marital Wealth

Even after the Supreme Court removed the slush fund reasoning, the remanded Seoul High Court kept a key idea: Chey’s shares in SK’s holding company belong in the marital estate. Judges said Roh contributed to maintaining and increasing the value of those shares through homemaking, raising children, and public activities that helped the group’s image. Based on that, the court set her recognized contribution at one-third, and his at two-thirds, then applied that ratio to the pool of divisible assets.

The court did draw a line around some holdings. Shares that Chey had gifted to relatives to keep management control and run business activities before the marriage broke down were excluded from division. But by counting the core SK Inc. stake itself, the judges made clear that explosive gains in a founder’s stock can still be shared with a spouse, even if that spouse did not run the company day to day. That is the heart of this “divorce of the century” story and a warning to global business owners.

AI Boom, SK Hynix, and the Fight Over Tech Wealth

This divorce did not happen in a vacuum. SK Group’s chip unit, SK Hynix, has surged thanks to demand for high-bandwidth memory chips that power Nvidia’s artificial intelligence systems. Media reports note that SK’s share price rose sharply between the first appellate trial and the remanded trial. The Seoul High Court openly said it took that “substantial increase in the share price” into account when deciding how to divide property between the spouses.

South Korea's Seoul High Court has ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his former wife Roh Soh-yeong $644 million in a revised divorce settlement. The amount was reduced from the earlier $940 million award after the Supreme Court ordered a fresh review, with the court… pic.twitter.com/auPBRc5EIY

— Fetch Pakistan (@FetchPakistan) July 28, 2026

At the same time, the court said it could not pretend that Chey’s management decisions had no impact on that rise. So judges tried to balance his business role with her homemaking and public-facing role. For conservative readers, the lesson is simple but important: when government courts can pull massive AI-era gains into family-law fights years after the fact, it raises serious questions about property rights, founder control, and how much protection any entrepreneur truly has from legal and political storms tied to past relationships.

Why This Foreign Case Matters to American Conservatives

South Korea’s judges now claim the power to treat core founder stock as marital property and to adjust payouts based on later market swings. That should catch the eye of anyone who cares about strong property rights, limited government, and clear rules around family and business. When courts lean on vague ideas like “public activities” and “housework” to re-slice billion-dollar holdings, they open the door to more legal uncertainty and more pressure on successful companies.

America’s constitutional protections and stronger respect for the rule of law help guard against this kind of after-the-fact wealth reshuffling. But the trend abroad is clear: as artificial intelligence and advanced chips create new fortunes, activists and courts worldwide will look for ways to redirect that wealth. South Korea’s “divorce of the century” shows how fast a private family dispute can turn into a public struggle over who owns the gains from the AI boom—and how fragile serious tech wealth can be when judges start treating it as a political and social tool.