- SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won was ordered to pay his former wife 944 billion won (£510 million/$644 million).
- The court rejected a higher payout based on the AI-driven surge in SK Hynix's valuation.
- The case has highlighted how the global AI boom is reshaping fortunes and legal battles alike.
South Korea's long-running "divorce of the century" has taken another twist, with a court ruling that the country's artificial intelligence boom should not determine the size of one of its biggest divorce settlements.
The Seoul High Court ruled that SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won must pay his former wife, Roh Soh-yeong, 944 billion won (about £510 million/$644 million) in a division of assets. While the figure is among the country's largest divorce awards, it falls well short of what Roh had sought after arguing that the recent surge in SK Hynix's value should be reflected in the settlement.
At the centre of the dispute was the explosive growth of SK Hynix, the memory chip giant controlled by SK Group. Demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence has transformed the company into one of the world's most valuable semiconductor businesses, sharply increasing Chey's personal wealth.
When should AI wealth be valued?
The key legal battle was not whether Roh was entitled to a share of the family's assets, but when those assets should be valued.
Roh argued that the settlement should be calculated using 2026 valuations, by which time SK Hynix's share price had surged on the back of the global AI boom. Had the court accepted that argument, the payout could have run into several billion dollars.
Instead, judges ruled the assets should be valued at the conclusion of the appeal hearing in 2024, before the AI rally pushed SK Hynix's valuation significantly higher. The decision followed an October Supreme Court ruling that also rejected Roh's argument that financial support from her late father, former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, should be considered when calculating the family's wealth.
The court said the settlement reflected a division under which Roh would receive one-third of the marital assets while Chey retained the remaining two-thirds.
The ruling is lower than an earlier High Court decision in 2024, which had awarded Roh 1.38 trillion won (about £745 million/$1 billion) in property division, alongside 2 billion won in alimony. That judgment was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
A marriage that became one of South Korea's biggest corporate dramas
Chey and Roh married in 1988 in what was widely described as the "wedding of the century", reflecting the union of one of South Korea's leading business families with the family of the country's then president.
The marriage began to unravel publicly in 2015, when Chey announced through a letter to South Korean media that the relationship had ended and acknowledged having a child with another woman. Both parties later filed for divorce, triggering years of legal disputes over the ownership of one of South Korea's largest business empires.
During that period, SK Hynix has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global AI investment boom. The company reached a $1 trillion valuation in May as demand for advanced memory chips accelerated with the expansion of artificial intelligence data centres.
Earlier this month, SK Hynix also completed a $26.5 billion US listing, the largest ever by a foreign company, further cementing its position at the centre of the AI supply chain.
The latest ruling closes another chapter in one of South Korea's most closely watched corporate disputes. But it also illustrates how rapidly rising AI valuations are beginning to influence not only financial markets, but also some of the world's biggest legal battles.
