SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, left, and his estranged wife Roh Soh-yeong, speak to the press while attending a hearing on their ongoing divorce settlement at the Seoul High Court, April 16. Yonhap
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won will be able to breathe a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court's decision to review a lower court's order requiring him to pay an astronomical amount of money to his estranged wife, Roh Soh-yeong, in their property division settlement, experts and industry officials said Sunday.
On Friday, the top court opted not to dismiss a hearing on the case apparently due to lingering controversies, after an appellate court acknowledged what SK described as a “critical error” in assessing Roh's contribution to the growth of the group.
The Seoul High Court had upheld its earlier ruling that Chey should pay her 1.38 trillion won ($986 million) in property division. The figure is the largest-ever divorce settlement here and a 20-fold increase from 66.5 billion won in the first trial.
Legal experts and officials from major conglomerates said the case seems to have been brought back to square one after the Supreme Court's decision.
“The highest court will focus on verifying how much Roh has contributed to the growth of the conglomerate over the past decades,” said Choi June-sun, professor emeritus at Sungkyunkwan University Law School.
But the professor said it will be time-consuming for the Supreme Court to make a ruling, due to the unprecedented scale of the case, which is often referred to as a once-in-a-century divorce settlement.
The case is also unique in that Roh is a daughter of late former President Roh Tae-woo. The lower court ruled that the former president helped protect late former SK Group Chairman Chey Jong-hyun, the father of the incumbent group leader, so the incumbent chairman could grow his business successfully and smoothly.
“The Supreme Court will have to set a new standard before making a final judgment, as there are no similar cases for reference,” the professor said.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won bows due to controversies regarding his divorce settlement at the firm's headquarters in Seoul, June 17. Yonhap
The latest decision by the Supreme Court, in itself, is in favor of Chey, as the lower court's ruling was feared to jeopardize his governance structure. Earlier, Chey had no choice but to sell his shares in SK Inc. to pay for the record amount of the divorce settlement. SK Inc. is the group's holding company, so Chey was at risk of losing management control of the company if the top court upheld the second trial's ruling.
Officials from the industry said the case will be reviewed from scratch, as the Supreme Court leaves open the possibility of adjusting the amount of the divorce settlement following the recent decision.
“The SK chief gained time to appeal the lower court's ruling and reduced corporate management uncertainties to some extent, as the Supreme Court sent a gesture of reviewing the earlier ruling,” an official from a conglomerate said.
Another key point in the dispute is the lower court's ruling that the group achieved solid growth powered by an illicit slush fund worth 30 billion won amassed during the 1988-93 Roh administration.
However, SK Group strongly denied the argument, saying the ruling “undermines SK's history of growth.”