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Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, and Roh So-young, Director of Art Center Nabi. / Yonhap

The property division lawsuit between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (65) and Art Center Nabi Director Roh So-young (65) will once again face review by the Supreme Court, after Chey's side filed an appeal, sending the more than nine-year-long legal battle back to the top court.

Chey's legal team said in a statement on the 16th, "After careful consideration of various circumstances, Chairman Chey has decided to file an appeal," adding, "We will approach the upcoming proceedings with the goal of minimizing negative impact on shareholders and the group's management."

Chey's side filed the appeal with the Seoul High Court the previous day, contesting the ruling from the remanded retrial. With the appeal filed on the final day of the deadline, the remanded retrial ruling — handed down on the 24th of last month by the Seoul High Court's Family Division 1 (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-ju) — will now go before the Supreme Court.

As a result, whether the property division ruling ordering Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won in cash becomes final will depend on the Supreme Court's decision.

In the earlier remanded retrial, the court had ordered Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won in property division — about 436.8 billion won less than the 1.3808 trillion won awarded in the 2024 appellate ruling.

The case began in 2017, when Chey filed for divorce mediation against Roh. The first-instance court ruled that SK shares constituted Chey's separate property, ordering him to pay Roh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in cash as property division.

The second-instance court significantly raised the property division amount to 1.3808 trillion won, finding that 30 billion won in slush funds allegedly given by former President Roh Tae-woo to SK's late founding chairman Choi Jong-hyun had contributed to SK Group's growth.

However, the Supreme Court ruled last October that since former President Roh's slush funds were illegally obtained, even if that money flowed into SK, it could not be considered as Roh So-young's contribution in the property division, and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court. In the remanded retrial on the 24th of last month, the court determined that Chey's SK shares still remained subject to property division, calculating the division amount at 944 billion won.

                                                                                                        Jeong Min-hoon